Poll Vegan is the least-appealing food word in existence

Poll Vegan is the least-appealing food word in existencePoll Vegan is the least-appealing food word in existenceIn charge of the office snacks? Firing up the grill for some coworkers this Memorial Day and planning to fire up some plant-based patties? While food allergies and dietary restrictions are increasingly common in the workplace - or, at least, accommodations for such restrictions are - theres one word you might want to avoid when setting the office lunch menu or socializing the plate of meat/dairy/everything-free cookies you just brought in vegan.Poll No vegan food, please and thank youA new poll from Morning Consult, looking at consumer food trends nationwide, finds that vegan is far and away the word most likely to make consumers less likely to buy or consume a product, with 35% saying the term repelled them versus just 17% who said the term made a product mora appealing.Vegan was followed closely on the most-repulsive list by diet (31%), sugar-free (20%), and fat-free (1 9%).Highlighting the lack of something - as with sugar-free and fat-free - was evidently a huge turn off to consumers. Who wants the treat thats less sweet or less filling?Its less clear why vegan - simply meaning using or containing no animal products - is so disfavored. Plenty of foods that one might not think of as vegan (say, many varieties of corn chips and potato chips) would apparently become less appealing if explicitly labelled as such.These are the most-appealing food wordsThe most appealing food words the poll found were Fresh, Farm fresh, and Sourced from American farmers. Eighty-one percent of Americans say a food or beverage is more appealing if labelled fresh.American consumers not willing to pay more for animal welfare or environmental stewardshipThe poll also asked consumers if theyd pay 50 cents more on a $5 item for a host of reasons. Least likely to get Americans to cough up the extra half dollar Packaging makes note of animal welfare in sourcing of the produ ct and Packaging makes note of the companys commitment to the environment (both with 82% of people saying they wouldnt pay extra).What would consumers pay extra for? Forty-five percent of respondents said theyd pay more for A brand name you know and like and 37% said the same if a product were labelled as Made in the United States.