The Impact of Meal Attributes and Nudging on Healthy Meal Consumption

We use a field experiment in a lunch restaurant to analyze how meal attributes and a “nudge” impact healthy labeled meal consumption. The nudge consists of increasing the salience of healthy labeled meals by placing them at the top of the menu. We find that certain meal attributes (e.g. poultry and red meat) greatly increase both sales and the market share of the healthy labeled meal. We conclude that a careful design of the healthy food supply may be efficient in encouraging healthier meal choices, e.g. supplying healthy labeled versions of popular conventional meals. We find no impact on healthy labeled meal sales from the nudge.