Mjölk 2017 - vad avgör om växtbaserade substitut inkluderas i kategorin?

Sammanfattning: The grocery industry has grown explosively during the last years which partly can be explained by the expansion of categorizes that used to contain only a few core products. These core products, such as; meat, pasta, milk and flour can today be substituted by amounts of new plant-based products. The substitutes consist of completely different ingredients than the core products and they are often not allowed to contain the word of the core product in their names. How does consumers look at these new products and what decides whether a consumer connects different substitutes to the "core-category" or consider them as separated from each other? Do consumers categorize these substitutes in the same category as core product of which they substitute? Questions this essay aim to answer, by studying the phenomenon in the milk category. The result of the study shows that customers today do include most plant-based substitutes in the same category as the core product "original-milk", who together with "lactose free milk", take the position as the category's prototype. The positions of the plant-based substitutes are however more uncertain. How well they are graded to fit into the category depends on the customers' engagement in the category, their attitude against the assortment, if they are buying the product on a regular basis, if they prioritize personal goals concerning health, environment and/or value for money and if they are variety seeking when buying groceries. The result also shows that more established products in the category, are less dependent of the mentioned variables and that females are more accepting in their categorization.