Exploration of the food‐related guilt concept

There is a continuous need to explore how consumers engage with healthy and sustainable eating behaviors. “Guilt” is a complicated belief that impacts consumers' eating behavior. Consumer‐based characteristics of food that might aid in identifying the perceptions of “guilt‐free,” “less guilt,” or “guilt” were investigated using focus groups. A sorting task was applied to identify product‐grouping patterns by consumers based on different levels of guilt perceptions they had with 18 food and beverage products. Four categories of 45 factors were identified that could elicit guilt perceptions, including (a) intrinsic and (b) extrinsic product characteristics, (c) situational factors, and (d) social‐cultural factors, indicating the complexity and multidimensionality of the “guilt” concept. Moreover, guilt perceptions were found to have a potential impact on leading consumers to seek healthier and sustainable food solutions by positively impacting their food choice, eating and drinking behavior. Practical applications This study showed the importance of understanding the role of guilt in eating behavior, and how guilt is related to product, situational, and social‐cultural factors. The findings set up the theoretical foundation for next step, building up new scales to measure quantitatively food‐related guilt.