Making Food VAT Reform Tangible: Concrete Price Information Increases Public Acceptance

Increasing the value-added tax (VAT) on animal- and reducing it on plant-based foods can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and diet-related disease burden by shifting consumption toward more sustainable dietary patterns. Yet, public acceptance remains low. Two pre-registered online experiments in Germany examined whether acceptance is linked to cost overestimation and whether communicating accurate price information increases public support. In Study 1 (N = 161), participants submitted a personal grocery receipt and were randomly assigned to one of three VAT scenarios: an increase on animal-based products (7% to 19%), a reduction on plant-based products (7% to 0%), or both. Policy acceptance was measured before and after participants estimated the price change of their receipt and received feedback on the actual change. Although participants systematically misestimated costs, initial acceptance (β = .92, p < .001) rather than misestimation (β = .03, p = .329) was the dominant predictor of subsequent acceptance. When given the opportunity to eliminate products from their receipt after receiving feedback on the actual change, participants predominantly removed meat and dairy. Study 2 (N = 299) focused on the VAT combination policy using a standardized €30 receipt. Participants either estimated costs before receiving feedback, received accurate price information only, or received only a policy description. Acceptance in the estimation (d = .54) and information (d = .33) conditions significantly increased compared to the control condition, while misestimation showed no significant relationship with acceptance. These findings suggest that expressing price changes in Euros rather than VAT percentages represents a simple, scalable strategy for increasing public support for sustainable food taxation.