**1. Introduction**

*Sustainable Consumption as a Free Choice Consumer Practice*

Over the past two decades, sustainable consumption research has progressed in describing challenges and problems associated with the sustainable food sector. For instance, prior research has highlighted the legendary barriers of availability, accessibility, and less variety of sustainable food products in various retail outlets such as supermarkets [1–4] as major inhibitors to sustainable consumption. Therefore, there were grounds for optimism on the part of sustainability researchers and practitioners that the introduction of

**Citation:** Yamoah, F.A.; Haque, A.u.; Yawson, D.E. Consumer Psychology on Food Choice Editing in Favor of Sustainability. *Sustainability* **2022**, *14*, 10130. https://doi.org/10.3390/ su141610130

Academic Editor: Flavio Boccia

Received: 30 July 2022 Accepted: 11 August 2022 Published: 16 August 2022

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sustainable food products into the mainstream environment of supermarkets could help surmount these barriers and promote sustainable food market growth.

Anselmsson and Johansson [5] also underscored the efforts by food marketing managers to draw consumers' attention to sustainable products through creative merchandising. Yet, recent research shows consumers do not purchase ample amounts of sustainable food products to substantially support the attainment of sustainable development goals in the medium to long term [6,7]. Sustainable food products in the context of this paper refer to products that contribute to a single or a combination of economic, ecological, or social dimension(s) by virtue of their attributes or consequence [8,9].

Admittedly, a major shift towards sustainability requires an entire institutional change [10]. Indeed, Schubert [11] emphasized the need for an institutional overhaul to re-echo that a paradigm shift away from unsustainable production and consumption–' . . . . . . requires institutional change, not merely modifying individual behavior at the margin'. Thus, a broadened cross-sectoral, integrative, and stakeholder-oriented research approach that has the potential to resolve comprehensively inhibitors to sustainable food production and consumption is a fundamental requirement [10].

While previous studies have focused on sustainable consumption while covering briefly the role of government, the studies either heavily emphasized the numeric expression to explain the relationship or focused on the importance of sustainable consumption patterns. However, the consumer psychology for or against sustainable choices is understudied. The hidden embedded themes of the consumer's psychology regarding the choices and preferences remain largely understudied. Previous studies have mainly focused on the consumers' and the producers' perspectives while partially engaging the government's role in the due process, whereas the reasoning for a choice selection of the consumers (especially the consumer's psychology for selecting or opposing the organic products) have not been explored in depth. Moreover, the producer's role is often found to be discussed in a descriptive manner. This study fills the gap by providing a critical take on the producers' practices and activities as well as the futuristic role of the government in organic/sustainable items production and consumption. Thus, this study is an attempt to fill the existing gap in the literature by providing a qualitative perspective exploring the research phenomenon. The useful truth (qualitative perspective) is largely missing from the existing literature, while there is over-emphasis on the factual truth (quantitative perspective). This study also fills the gap in the methodological perspective by offering in-depth insight into the research phenomenon through the qualitative approach. Thus, the current study seeks to address an important but unexplored area of overt paternalism by examining the psychology behind consumers' reasons to vote for or against a proposal for the government to legislate food choice editing in favour of sustainable alternatives. We deem this research enquiry as the "elephant in the room of sustainable consumption scholarship". It is, in our view, a critical issue with huge implications for public health and nutrition status, consumer policy towards sustainable food production, and consumption and consumer ethics. The research is novel as it addresses the elephant in the room of sustainable consumption which has previously been ignored by researchers and academics. There is limited evidence to explore the research phenomenon by bringing the hidden embedded themes through qualitative analysis. The previous studies established the relationship through numeric expression while failing to examine the hidden themes of consumer psychology. Thus, this research is unique and novel in providing an in-depth understanding of the consumers' vote for or against sustainable items.

The academic novelty includes contributing a new body of knowledge by overcoming numeric expression and exploring the research phenomenon through a qualitative perspective. Thus, this paper has a robust methodology. Moreover, the existing literature needed updated information behind consumer psychology, producers' existing practice, and the role of the government in the due process–all being covered under one umbrella research. Moreover, the practical implication includes suggested innovative techniques and the promotion of sustainable consumption and production practices and procedures.

The structure of the manuscript after the introduction includes a literature review, which critically evaluates the existing studies, followed by a research methodology explaining the methods and materials employed in the existing study to gather the information and commence the primary investigation. The next section after methods and materials is qualitative findings and discussions expressing the current findings in relation to the previous literature at hand. This is followed by a conclusion and implications. Lastly, the manuscript contains research limitations and future studies.
