Shopping Motives as Moderators in Sustainable Food Consumption: Gender Differences and Brand Loyalty Implications in the Danish Food Market

In recent years, consumer preference for sustainable food product attributes has increased. This research aims to investigate the moderating influence of consumers’ shopping motives on the interplay among gender, preferences for sustainable attributes, and brand loyalty. An online cross-sectional study was undertaken with 506 food consumers. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate direct, indirect, and moderating effects between the studied constructs and variables. We found that high quality positively moderates the relationships between gender and sustainable attributes and between gender and brand loyalty, while price as a shopping motive (marginally) negatively moderates these relationships. These findings suggest that brand managers aiming to strengthen brand loyalty among sustainability-oriented consumers—particularly where gender-based differences emerge—may benefit most from pairing sustainability positioning with strong-quality retail settings. In contrast, price-focused retail settings are less effective for activating sustainability-based brand loyalty.