Customer discrimination in the fast food market: a web-based experiment on a Swedish university campus

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a study that examined customer discrimination against fictitious male and female food truck owners with Arabic-sounding names on a Swedish university campus. In a web-based experiment, students (N = 1,406) were asked, in a market survey setting, whether they thought it was a good idea that a food truck was establishing on their campus and of their willingness to pay for a typical food truck meal. Four names—male and female Swedish-sounding names and male and female Arabic-sounding names—were randomly assigned to food trucks. We found no evidence of customer discrimination against food truck owners with Arabic-sounding names. Participants were slightly more positive to a food truck establishment run by a male with an Arabic-sounding name than a male with a Swedish-sounding name.