Conflicting Goals: Calorie Attentiveness and Consumer Food Bundle Choice
(A2021-94358)

AUTHORS

Oladunni Omebere-Iyari, Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester; Hongwei He, Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester; Panagiotis Sarantopoulos, Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester

ABSTRACT

High-calorie, food bundles pervade the food industry and contribute to the obesity epidemic by influencing consumer behaviour through tempting discounts. In this research, we investigate the interplay of food bundle pricing and calorie attentiveness and the resultant goals conflict (i.e., saving money vs eating healthy). We further investigate the potential to resolve this conflict by the type of meal bundle (low-calorie vs high-calorie) offered and determine the efficacy of self-regulation in resisting bundle meal discounts. We conducted three online experiments using the cinema (N = 399), fast food (N = 295) and grocery store (N = 148) contexts. Results reveal that calorie attentive consumers with prevention focus regulatory orientation are less likely to find the bundle discount attractive and more likely to forgo meal deals. However, this effect was attenuated when low-calorie bundles were offered.

REFERENCES

Newton and Yemofe Omebere-Iyari