On the Knife Edge: How Vegan Food as an Eco-innovation Crosses the Chasm

This paper aims to explain how vegan food – an eco-innovation – can transition across a large divide separating the early market from the main market of adopters. We focus on the persuasion stage of the innovation-decision process, and the product attributes that motivate the adoption of vegan food products by vegan (early market) as well as non-vegan (main market) consumers. Our in-depth conversations with 32 (16 vegan and 16 non-vegan) consumers at restaurants/cafés in Brisbane (Australia) and Barcelona (Spain) reveal that while product taste and ethical and lifestyle compatibility persuade vegan consumers’ adoption decision, it is the price, lifestyle compatibility, and – counterintuitively – product novelty that persuade non-vegans in the main market. Based on these findings we make tentative propositions for the larger eco-innovation domain, on how firms can develop value propositions ultimately for two different consumer groups – the early market and main market.