Consumption of plant-based foods: motives and drivers among Italian consumers

The chapter investigates the motives driving Italian consumers to eat plant-based foods (PBFs) among omnivores, exploring the moderating role of consumer innovativeness – in its hedonist and social connotations – and how environmental and health concerns affect the attitude-intention path. The results show that environmental and health concerns are the main motives driving the consumption of PBFs both directly and indirectly. The attitude-intention path is positively moderated by social innovativeness, but not by hedonist innovativeness. Gender, but not age, is confirmed as an important driver of consumer’s tendency to eat PBFs. Theoretical and managerial implications are then derived, contributing to foster academic knowledge on an underresearched consumer target and to prove the effect of social innovativeness as an attitude-intention path moderator – an effect that, to our knowledge, is novel.