foods Article Ecology or Health—How to Successfully Promote Palm Oil Free Products: A Comparison between Spain and Poland Dominika Adamczyk * and Dominika Maison   Citation: Adamczyk, D.; Maison, D. Ecology or Health—How to Successfully Promote Palm Oil Free Products: A Comparison between Spain and Poland. Foods 2021, 10, 2380. https://doi.org/10.3390/ foods10102380 Academic Editors: Jean-Xavier Guinard and Maggie Geuens Received: 19 July 2021 Accepted: 3 October 2021 Published: 8 October 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Stawki5/7, 00-183 Warsaw, Poland; dominika.maison@psych.uw.edu.pl * Correspondence: dominika.adamczyk@psych.uw.edu.pl Abstract: Palm oil, widely used in the food industry, is causing some concern due to its negative impact on the environment and human health. The goal of the conducted research was to answer the question of what would be a better strategy for the marketing communication of palm oil substitutes, its health benefits or its environmental friendliness? This article presents a research project exploring the potential of chocolate bread spread based on a saturated fat and palm oil substitute. The research was conducted on two samples of Spanish (n = 675) and Polish (n = 661) bread spread consumers. In the experimental study, consumers were presented with a description of a new chocolate spread entering the market, with references to (a) its health benefits or (b) its environmental benefits resulting from the absence of palm oil in the product. The results showed that ecology references in food-related marketing communication in Spain have a stronger influence on the consumer decision-making process than health references. In Poland, the effect of communication was moderated by an evaluation of a person’s eating style and the individual level of eco-friendly behavior of the consumer. Keywords: palm oil; palm oil substitutes; consumer decisions; chocolate bread spread; ecological attitudes 1. Introduction Palm oil, widely used in the food industry for many years, is causing some concern due to its negative impact on the human body (high saturated fat content and, most importantly, toxic substances resulting from the overheating of palm oil during the refining process [1,2]), the state of the environment (e.g., devastation of tropical forests and greenhouse gas emissions as a result of palm oil production), and the social issues concerning the people involved in its production (e.g., land grabbing and violation of labor rights). In the face of an increasing consumer awareness of the food they consume, several issues were raised about the need to find a solution to the palm oil problem, even up to consumer boycotts of companies using it (e.g., Nutella [3]). Studies on consumer attitudes towards palm oil indicate that—given the many problems arising from the consumption and production of this type of oil—health and environmental issues are the issues that consumers are most concerned about [4]. Social issues like the exploitation of employees and pollution of local areas are less important for consumers. As an industry answer to consumers’ concern about palm oil, some brands have put information stating “palm oil-free” on the packaging of their products, while others have decided to use palm oil from safe and sustainable plantations [5]. However, as the research shows, the concept of sustainable palm oil is not entirely convincing to consumers [5]. Companies are, therefore, endeavoring to somehow replace this product with other fats, but products based on palm oil substitutes are often not as smooth as palm oil and do not give as much pleasure to the palate and senses. In this context, the question arises as how to make palm oil alternatives attractive to the consumer, encouraging them to switch from their current brand and try a new product? Foods 2021, 10, 2380. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10102380 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/foods