Consumers’ attitude towards palm oil consumption: The key role of health concern.

Palm oil is a versatile ingredient of many food and non-food products. Yet, over the last year it has rapidly become a controversial product due to its alleged harmful health, social and environmental effects. Many food companies have introduced alternative fat sources into their products, in order to meet consumers’ concerns. Despite a growing literature exists on palm oil sustainability, consumers’ attitudes towards palm oil consumption have not been deeply investigated yet. There are few available studies, mainly focused on consumers’ willingness to pay for palm oil free products and consumers’ awareness of the problem. The aim of the present study is to gain a better understanding of consumers’ attitudes towards palm oil consumption, by taking into account three dimensions of sustainable consumption—environment, social issues, and health—and assessing their relations with intention to avoid palm oil and individual’s engagement in information seeking about palm oil. A survey of 608 respondents was performed. Data were analysed by structural equation modelling (SEM). Noticeably, this is the first study to address the issue of comparison between different drivers of sustainable consumer intentions using a formal test by SEM. Results show that: a) health concern is the main driver of participants’ intention to reduce palm oil consumption; b) consumers’ attitudes towards environment and social fairness exert significant direct effects on intention; c) information seeking exerts a direct effect on intention; also, it partially mediates the effects of environmental and social concerns, whereas it totally mediates the health concern effect. Keywords: Palm oil, health concern, food consumption sustainability, structural equation modelling.