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Position Matters? : Changing Positions on Menus Influences People’s Food Preferences

University of British Columbia. Student Services; University of British Columbia. Campus and Community Planning

The positioning of food items on a menu impacts the desirability of food items, and this effect may be powerful enough to encourage healthy eating habits. This experiment examines how a food item’s position on the menu influences food choices. In two exper iments (N=374), participants were given one of three pizza menus consisting of the same items, with the vegan option located at the top, middle, or bottom of the menu. Although not statistically significant, we found an increasing trend for participants to prefer the vegan option when it is positioned at the top of the menu (study1: p = .14, study2: p = .25). Additionally, we also found that making the vegan option more appetizing and a descriptive name may lead to a marginally significant increase (p = .089) in participant’s preference for it. To the extent that designs of menus can influence food ordering habits, our findings suggest that placing an unpopular food item at the top of the menu and having a more descriptive and appetizing could lead to an increase in preference for that item. This study provides insights for food service providers looking to promote healthy-eating or plant-based choices in their restaurants through menu designs. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”

Report

eng

2023-09-07

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/85837

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/