After eighteen months of research across restaurants, supermarkets, and communication channels, we’re circling back to a deceptively simple question: What happens when meat isn’t on the menu?
This October and November, the Center of Excellence in Food, Tourism & Leisure (CoEFTL) at The American College of Greece Research Center (ACG-RC) is launching an enhanced version of our original alternative protein study. This time, we’re armed with insights from four completed research iterations and ready to test whether strategic menu design can genuinely shift dietary patterns on campus.
What Are LIKE-A-PRO Living Labs?
Living Labs are real-world research environments where academic rigor meets everyday life. As part of the EU-funded Horizon Europe project LIKE-A-PRO, these labs bring together researchers and consumers across 11 European countries to explore how can we support Europe’s transition toward sustainable food systems through alternative protein sources.
Rather than conducting surveys or focus groups in isolation, Living Labs embed research directly into the spaces where people actually make food decisions, such as campus cafeterias, supermarket aisles, and dining halls. The CoEFTL leads the Greek Living Lab through the ACG-RC, using The American College of Greece campus as our testing ground.
Each Living Lab iteration applies a different behavioral intervention strategy drawn from the Consumer Choice Framework, examining how various approaches influence what ends up on our plates.
The Journey So Far: Four Iterations, Four Perspectives
Iteration 1: Choice Editing – The “Meat or Dare!” Campaign (April 2024)
We started by removing meat options from campus dining menus entirely, albeit gradually. It was controversial and it gave us our first real glimpse into how students react when their usual choices disappear. This “choice editing” approach revealed not just what people chose instead, but how they felt about having that choice made for them.
Iteration 2: Choice Expansion – Expanding Dietary Horizons (November 2024)
If the first iteration was about limitation, the second was about possibility. We organized choice expansion workshops where participants tasted alternative protein products ranging from the familiar (edamame, soy milk) to the adventurous (cricket-based foods). Beyond taste tests, participants evaluated retail packaging and helped us understand which products might actually make the leap from research lab to shopping cart.
Iteration 3: Choice Environment – The Supermarket Reality Check (April-May 2025)
Research in controlled environments is one thing; the chaos of actual grocery shopping is another. Among other things, we partnered with four AB Vassilopoulos ARMONIA locations to study choice environment effects in real retail settings. How does product placement matter? What about labeling? Do the strategies that work in a campus cafeteria translate to a busy supermarket aisle on a Tuesday evening?
Iteration 4: Beyond Choice – Beyond the Moment of Choice (June-September 2025)
Here’s where things got interesting. While previous iterations focused on the moment someone stands in front of a menu or shelf, Iteration 4 stepped back to examine what shapes those choices long before hunger strikes. We explored the psychological mechanisms behind food messaging and identified when food literacy interventions might be most effective across different life stages. It turns out that understanding why people choose what they choose requires looking well beyond the point of purchase.
Explore highlights and insights.
Choice Editing Refined: What We’re Testing Now
Armed with insights from all four previous iterations, we’re returning to choice editing but smarter; we’re implementing Choice Editing 2.0.
What Is Choice Editing?
Choice editing is an intervention strategy that modifies the options available to consumers, essentially curating the menu to guide selection patterns. Rather than educating, persuading, or incentivizing different choices, choice editing reshapes the choice landscape itself. Due to its controversial nature, it requires careful balance. When done well, it can shift behavior patterns at scale. When done poorly, it risks backlash and perceived restriction of freedom.
Study Design
Our refined study unfolds across three carefully timed phases at Dipnosofistirion, the ACG campus canteen:
- Baseline Assessment (October 15-17, 2025)
Before we change anything, we need to understand where we’re starting. Last week, our research team measured current attitudes toward alternative proteins, willingness to reduce meat consumption, and openness to trying alternative protein products. - Intervention Week 1 (October 20-24, 2025)
Coming up next, meat options will be gradually reduced throughout the week. By Friday, the campus restaurant will offer zero meat-based meals. This graduated approach, rather than an abrupt elimination, allows us to observe behavioral responses as options narrow incrementally. - Intervention Week 2 (November 18-21, 2025)
Spaced a month apart, we repeat the same graduated reduction pattern, but this time we’re measuring whether attitudes have shifted from the baseline and whether the second exposure produces different reactions than the first.
Why a Real Campus Cafeteria Matters
Why not just survey people about hypothetical scenarios? Because human behavior is contextual and often inconsistent with stated intentions. Studying food choices at an actual point of sale gives us data that reflects reality rather than aspiration.
The campus canteen is also a perfect microcosm for broader food system questions. It’s a semi-controlled environment (known menu, prices, traffic flow) that still operates under real-world constraints (students and staff can always leave campus to eat elsewhere, they have genuine preferences and dietary restrictions, social dynamics matter). If an intervention can shift behavior here, we learn something potentially scalable to other institutional dining settings.
The Bigger Picture: From ACG to European Food Systems
This study is one piece of a much larger puzzle. The LIKE-A-PRO project spans 11 countries, develops 16 new alternative protein products, and engages thousands of European consumers in understanding how we might transform our food systems toward sustainability. The CoEFTL’s leadership of the Greek Living Lab contributes to this continental conversation, offering insights specific to Hellenic food culture while contributing to pan-European findings.
By refining and repeating our choice editing intervention, we’re not just collecting more data but rather we’re testing whether initial findings hold up under improved conditions, whether learnings from other intervention types enhance effectiveness, and whether this approach has legs beyond a single trial run.
Join the Conversation
Food system transformation isn’t something researchers do to people but rather something we figure out together. The students, faculty, and staff who participate in these studies aren’t just data points; they’re co-creators of knowledge about how we might eat in ways that are both sustainable for the planet and satisfying for humans.
If you’re on the ACG campus this fall, you’ll witness this research firsthand. Pay attention to what’s on the menu, notice your own reactions, and consider participating in our surveys!
What: Choice Editing 2.0: A refined study examining how graduated reduction of meat options influences attitudes toward and adoption of alternative protein products
Where: The American College of Greece (ACG) campus canteen (Dipnosofistirion)
When: Baseline surveys October 15-17, 2025; Intervention Week 1: October 20-24, 2025; Intervention Week 2: November 18-21, 2025
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For more information about the LIKE-A-PRO project, please visit the
