Nudging dietary transition in Czech canteens: impacts of vegan meal introduction and label salience

Institutional canteens can support public health by diversifying menus and ensuring genuine plant-based options. This study evaluates how the introduction of a vegan meal and labelling influenced meal selection at Charles University, Prague, addressing a research gap in Central Europe.

We analysed transaction-level data from multiple canteens between 2022 and 2024. The study utilised a quasi-experimental design across four phases: Baseline, Pilot Expansion, Expansion Unlabeled, and Expansion Labelled (explicit “VEGAN” titles). We employed two modelling frameworks: a Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) for aggregate canteen-week shares, and a multivariate Linear Probability Model with individual fixed effects to isolate within-person behavioural shifts. Aggregate results showed that increasing the number of days a vegan dish was offered per week significantly increased the vegan meal share, while reducing meat and vegetarian shares. At the transaction level, a baseline model shows that having a vegan option on a given day increases an individual’s probability of selecting a vegan option by 17.4 percentage points. Interaction models revealed significant heterogeneity: the behavioural response to daily vegan availability was 8.7 percentage points lower for men than for women. Across longitudinal phases, unlabeled availability increased vegan choice probability by 6 percentage points for women (4.2 for men), while the subsequent addition of explicit labels nearly tripled this effect to 16 points for women and 10.5 for men. While increasing the frequency of vegan offerings moderately shifts behaviour, explicit labelling acts as a primary catalyst for a significant dietary transition. Future interventions should prioritise label salience and demographic-specific tailoring to address established habits among men and older diners.

Key messages

• While vegan availability alone increases selection probability, adding explicit labels nearly triples this effect, driving significant substitution away from meat in university canteens.

• Heterogeneity in vegan meal selection among men and older diners suggests institutional nudges require demographic-specific strategies to overcome established habits.