Plant-based eggs are quietly joining burgers and milk alternatives in the grocery aisle, but what makes someone willing to try them?
Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Purdue University set out to find out. Their study, published in Foods, used a vignette design, a method that creates hypothetical dining scenarios, to explore how factors like price, product type and setting influence consumers’ willingness to purchase vegan eggs.
“We wanted to measure the consumer's perception about plant-based eggs,” said Da Eun Kim, a doctoral student in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at Illinois. “A vignette experiment allowed us to create hypothetical scenarios and isolate what consumers really think.”
Instead of asking participants directly if they’d buy plant-based eggs, the researchers asked them to imagine eating breakfast either at home or in a restaurant, with a choice between scrambled eggs or pancakes made with vegan eggs.
The results? Consumers were more likely to choose plant-based eggs when they were part of something familiar, like pancakes, rather than served on their own.
“We expected the setting to be more important, as we thought the novelty of the plant-based egg product would lead people to want to eat it in a restaurant where chefs know how to prepare the product in a way that tastes good,” said Brenna Ellison, a professor at Purdue University. “Surprisingly, the location of where you were eating, whether it be at a restaurant versus at home, didn't have as much of an effect as we imagined.”
Participants still favored traditional eggs for taste and appearance, but plant-based options were rated higher for environmental impact and animal welfare, a reflection of the broader ethical motivations driving many food choices today.
Prior experience also played a role.
“We did find that consumers who had previous experience trying plant-based eggs were more likely to purchase them compared to people without that experience,” Ellison said. “This suggests that consumers had a positive experience with the product previously.”
Ellison added that introducing vegan eggs in familiar recipes may help people overcome “mental hurdles” about trying them. Kim agreed, noting that while the taste was different in her own experience, the texture of liquid plant-based eggs was surprisingly similar to the real thing.
These findings carry a clear message for the industry: give people an easy, tasty and recognizable way to try something new.
This research received no external funding.