**2. Literature Review**

A vast literature has confirmed that, in several economies, sustainability is a prevailing key problem, particularly in the agri-food industry [9,10,12–15]. Furthermore, regarding sustainable food consumption, several attributes are found to be connected to the differentiation of products, thus, assisting and enabling agri-food ventures to increase the value of their respected commodities [12,14–17]. In addition to that, those organizations that demonstrate the triple bottom approach (caring for people, the planet, and profit) by being ethical, social, and environmentally responsible reflect a higher corporate image [14,18,19]. Nonetheless, the consumers' psychology and their input are still understudied. The work of Haque et al. [14] carried out in a similar dimension, primarily focused on "amenable to reduce food selection options available in order to offer increased sustainable alternatives" while giving very little scope and detail about why the consumers would/would not be willing to consume sustainable/organic items. Thus, there is a need to explore the in-depth themes that reflect the consumer psychology of two types: (a) those in favor of sustainable consumption and (b) those opposing sustainable consumption practices.

Haque et al. [14] argued that there is still no agreement on a widely accepted definition of sustainability. Equally, the concept of sustainable food has not been studied under one standard approach [10,20]. From the lens of food production, there are several products that are marketed as sustainable items by showing ethical and/or environmental aspects. Labels and certifications are also used to show their credibility so that consumers can easily identify them [21,22]. Some consumers might buy but still may not buy those items. The useful truth must be explored to know the consumer's psychology behind or against decisions. Interestingly, "per current status, there is no omnibus label for sustainable food, but rather reflected in ethical, social, and environmental elements being the focal point for any scheme is expressed in fairtrade, organic, or eco-labels" [15]; cited from Haque et al. [14].

Discourses on behavior-change intervention have also reinforced the centrality of the food consumer stakeholder as the main actor behind the slow pace of growth of this important industry [3,4,6,7]. Indeed, notable strands of sustainable food consumption scholarship have emerged to promote awareness and behavior change include: (1) Consumer-behavior research focused on closing the attitude-behavior gap [23–25] and (2) Green nudges studies [11,26–31]. These efforts notwithstanding, it is arguable that strategies based on the 'attitude-behavior gap' and 'green nudges' research aimed at promoting the patronage of sustainable food products appear ineffective in the short term, as their impact on the market share of the sustainable food industry has been minimal [7,32]. Therefore, the sense of optimism that heralded mainstreaming of sustainable food products into the mainstream environment of supermarkets has not significantly engendered sustainable consumption. This situation serves to remind researchers and practitioners about the dynamic and complex nature of consumer behavior and the need to explore research avenues beyond attitude-behavior gaps and nudges to promote sustainable consumption.

Consumers frequently like to associate themselves with sustainable items reflecting higher concern for society, healthy food, or commodities exhibiting greater fairness towards food producers [14,33]. Worldwide, there is an increased awareness of consumption patterns escalating the demand for the production of sustainable items [14,34,35]. Globalization has significantly influenced the expansion of the market by reducing boundaries for the exchange of information and goods and services [15]. Yet, it is not free from the challenges it has brought to sustainable consumption. In fact, it could be argued that

globalization is one of the hurdles to uniform sustainable consumption practices in the country. However, there are arguments proposed by the champions in favor of globalization that global consumers have higher market awareness and enable the promotion fairtrade practices [36–40]. Yet, from the extracted literature at hand, we could not find a study that has examined the reasoning behind being for or against sustainable consumption. The consumer's psychology in this regard is still understudied.

A plethora of studies has focused on environmental sustainability while primarily concentrating on the specific dimension of sustainable food consumption [15]. A wide range of studies found that "sustainability has mainly focused on environment-friendly consumption and the consumption of organic products" [1,41–43]. Criticism about the organic sector is that it has still failed to capture a large segment of the market despite having the potential. Thus, our study is an attempt to investigate the reasoning behind the failure of organic items being unable to capture their potential. Yet, few attempts are carried out by research academics that explore fairtrade as a facet of ethical consumption [44,45] or animal welfare [41,46].

The work of Sidali and Hemmerling [47] found that consumers often have higher expectations from the producers to produce sustainable products. Yet, consumers themselves take little or no initiative to travel a long distance to purchase and consume sustainable food. For example, the work of Sirieix et al. [48] revealed that, for seasonal items, consumers are not very enthusiastic about travelling long distances; they would instead consume the items that are easily accessible. However, we are looking to explore the reason reflecting consumer psychology about the sustainable food available in the supermarket, which is closer and easily accessible. We attempt to understand the reason for favouring or opposing it.
