None of the reactions were surprising. The discussion stopped being about food almost immediately and turned into one about identity, autonomy, and cultural irritation. A short selection: 

“Bizarre. And this really has to stop sometime. First they make it unaffordable for normal people to even get in. And once you’re inside, you’re forced to eat that vague food nonsense. Let us decide for ourselves what we eat 🤬 This goes way too far. Maybe it’s time to skip Efteling for a year…” 

“Even though I support initiatives that improve animal welfare and I personally want to reduce my meat consumption, all this preaching by organisations that think they need to ‘educate the common people’ just makes me crave a huge steak. 

“I now get irritated just hearing the words ‘sustainable’ and ‘climate’.  Not because they aren’t important, but because of the double standards, hypocrisy, and know-it-all attitude of most people promoting them. For me, it has the opposite effect.” 

Any talk of boycotts will probably turn out to be exaggerated, and the negative reactions were no doubt anticipated. And a part of the audience is likely happy about the change, but those people generally don’t show up in the comment sections. 

The intensity of the reaction says less about poffertjes and mayonnaise and more about what this announcement symbolized. Food is not a neutral choice; it signals identity. And when a brand with deep emotional meaning—like De Efteling—visibly disrupts familiar patterns, friction arises. Not so much over what is being served, but over what it implies. 

This pattern is familiar. A company makes a sincere effort to become more sustainable. A lot of internal work goes into it. And once it’s done, the impulse is to talk about it. 

But whether that’s always wise is another question. 

From the audience’s perspective, there are at least three good reasons to communicate this kind of change less explicitly—or even keep it largely quiet. 

By making plant-based food the new default, De Efteling inevitably chose a side in a broader cultural debate. In doing so, it unintentionally positioned a significant segment of visitors as “lagging behind,” “part of the problem,” or at the very least as people who needed correcting. 

That’s risky. De Efteling serves a true mass audience: young and old, urban and regional, progressive and conservative. In that context, norm-setting quickly feels like rejection. Not because people are necessarily against plant-based food, but because they don’t recognize themselves in the moral undertone. 

This group may even be larger than expected. Not the loudest voices, but a stable base of families and repeat visitors for whom familiarity, nostalgia, and uncomplicated enjoyment matter more than ideals. Those are exactly the people a brand like this would prefer not to publicly irritate. 

One comment stood out to me in particular: the claim that the environmental benefits of a vegan croquette are negligible compared to the overall footprint of a day at a theme park, especially when many visitors travel long distances by car. 

This is where things get tricky. Explicitly positioning plant-based food as a moral step forward, is an invitation to make impact comparisons. Visitors start calculating, weighing, and eventually dismissing the initiative as symbolic politics—or worse, hypocrisy. Why should they make a sacrifice when the park’s overall climate impact is so much larger? 

What was meant as genuine progress can end up feeling like imposed virtue. 

Perhaps the most important point: a day at De Efteling is not a moral experience. It’s a hedonistic escape. You go for fairy tales, nostalgia, sugar, fat, and carefree pleasure. 

In that context, people don’t want to be confronted with “doing the right thing.” Even visitors who are very conscious about sustainability in their everyday lives often want to temporarily switch off that moral compass. Not because they oppose the message, but because the moment doesn’t call for it. 

The lesson here is simple: what is the right thing to do for De Efteling can be contextually misplaced for their visitors. Moral appeals rarely work in environments built around indulgence and emotional release. 

A better strategy would not have been a single, uniform food policy, but a segmented food experience. 

The question isn’t whether De Efteling should expand its plant-based offering—it almost certainly should, and this choice clearly stems from strong internal values. The real question is how to organize and explain that choice without unnecessary friction. 

One option would be to explicitly create space for different expectations: 

• families looking for familiar, trusted food, 

• younger visitors who value sustainability and innovation, 

• international guests with dietary requirements, 

• and traditional visitors who mainly want something that tastes good, without commentary. 

By treating plant-based food as a choice rather than a norm, sales could grow just as fast—without triggering cultural resistance. 

There is also a second, potentially more effective parallel path: the silent transition. Replace products wherever you can offer an objectively equal (or better!) taste experience with a plant-based alternative. No labels. No explanations. No interviews in national newspapers. 

The irony is that many of the fiercest critics will happily dip their fries in creamy vegan mayonnaise (another Dutch tradition), as long as it tastes good and isn’t presented as a moral statement. In that scenario, acceptance isn’t a talking point. It simply happens. 

I understand why marketers want to talk about sustainability. It takes effort, internal persuasion, and conviction, and there is a desire to show that you stand for something. But often, not saying anything is more effective than explaining everything. 

Not because sustainability doesn’t matter—but because visible moral messaging creates resistance in contexts where people are not receptive to it. Acceptance often doesn’t come from persuasion, but from habituation. By making something so normal that it stops being a topic altogether. 

The paradox is that sustainability may be most successful at the moment no one notices it. When the vegan croquette is just a good croquette. When the choice feels right without being framed as a choice. 

In that unmarked middle—without flags, without statements—change is often easier than at the extremes, where the loudest voices are heard. 

This is exactly where our work at the Future of Food Institute comes in. Cases like De Efteling show that impact is not just about what you change, but how you communicate that change—and to whom. By testing messages before campaigns go live, grounding strategic decisions in behavioural and cultural insights, and segmenting audiences using our food profiles, we help organisations anticipate friction instead of being surprised by it. The goal is not to dilute ambition, but to deliver it in a way that actually lands. When messages resonate with the values, contexts and expectations of different groups, backlash is minimised, adoption accelerates, and sustainable choices become normal rather than contested.  

That’s how our insights helps to turn intention into real-world impact.