Digital Marketing Strategies for Sustainable Food and Beverage Brands: A Bibliometric Systematic Literature Review

1. Introduction

A continuous increase in the global population increases the risk of environmental damage to the environment.¹ Rising demand levels are a key contributing factor to the carbon footprints.^2,3 In response, organizations providing products and services are also under growing pressure to shift their strategies to accommodate the evolving expectations of diverse stakeholders while taking care of society’s long-term interests. This strategic realignment has strengthened the demand to adopt and uphold sustainable practices. Moreover, consumers are increasingly drawing on green and sustainable offerings. Research indicates that products and brands incorporating sustainability claims exhibit stronger growth trajectories than their conventional counterparts.⁴ Given the increasing importance of sustainability and growing concerns over environmental issues, there is an urgent need to adopt credible and environmentally friendly practices to address these challenges effectively.

Governments worldwide have emphasized the importance of promoting environmentally friendly products to support green marketing. Strict environmental policies have been adopted to minimize sustainability issues related to the sustainability.⁵ An urgent need is for environment-friendly innovations, including products, services, and business models that aim to reduce the overall impact on natural resources.⁶ Previous research on green products and sustainability has typically adopted a broad approach, examining various product categories and services in the far-reaching domain of green marketing.^7–9 However, it is important to understand that consumer behavior and marketing strategies often differ significantly across product types. For food products, the role and impact of sustainability may differ from those observed in other categories. Thus, it is essential to explore the sustainability of food products and their development over the past decade (2014-2024), particularly through digital marketing.

The rapid development and spread of digital technology marketing presence has led to a revolution in the marketplace. Marketing is now mainly centred on digital media such as blogs, websites, email, and social networks.¹⁰ However, digital marketing extends far beyond traditional internet marketing. Modern digital tools encompass a mix of online marketing tools digital technologies, including websites, email, databases, and interactive platforms such as blogs, feeds, podcasts, and social networks. The growing adoption of digital technology has significantly influenced consumer behavior, reshaping how people make purchasing decisions.¹¹ Consequently, marketers must understand and adapt to the impact of digital marketing. Effective digital marketing requires well-thought strategies and selection of appropriate media to engage target audiences, increase sales, and drive profitability. In addition, with the rapid growth of D2C brands, the traditional e-commerce model has witnessed rapid growth by bypassing traditional retailers and distributors. Additionally, the adoption of the omni-channel approach has further helped the growth of online food sales.

Previous studies have attempted to identify the factors responsible for consumers’ adoption of green or sustainable food. A review of literature reveals the relationship between green marketing strategies and the resulting consumer behavior in different contexts. A study on green marketing identified the major themes of green purchases and green marketing mix using thematic analysis.¹² More recently, a comprehensive assessment of peer-reviewed empirical studies was conducted to gain insights into the interaction between green marketing strategies for sustainable food and consumer behaviour¹³ findings indicate the role of digital marketing in establishing an effective relationship among players in an agri-food system.¹⁴ An increase in the diffusion of digital technologies has significantly influenced consumer purchasing decisions,¹¹ triggering a plethora of research covering the broad domain of food and beverages.^15,16 Researchers have attempted to uncover the role of digital advertisements,¹⁷ media content and peer influence,¹⁸ digital marketing techniques,^19,20 brand partnerships²¹ and influencers in the marketing of food and beverages.²² Scholars have outlined the darker side of digital marketing in the industry, providing deeper insights into policy-related challenges,²³ vulnerabilities in the use of social media²⁴ and overexposure.²⁵ However, to our knowledge, no previous study has highlighted digital marketing strategies for sustainable food and beverage brands through a review of the literature from the past decade. As these brands are gaining prominence in the digital sphere, there is an urgent need to explore the studies conducted in the past decade (2014-2024). Furthermore, previous studies have focused on the customer perspective, and no attempt has been made to underline strategic perspectives related to sustainable food and beverage brands in an online ecosystem.

Thus, as evident from the literature, no previous review has captured an inclusive understanding of digital marketing strategies for sustainable food and beverage (F&B) brands. Consequently, this study attempts to address this issue by analyzing and integrating the relevant literature on sustainable foods and digital/online markets/retail in recent years. This study aims to address the following research questions (RQs):

To address these research questions, we developed a systematic literature review (SLR) based on the 5W1H pattern.²⁶ The pattern was selected because it is the most appropriate method to map out the state of research on a topic.²⁷ This method is widely implemented across various contexts for frame analysis in literature reviews.²⁸ 5W1H represents what, who, where, when, how, and why utilizing this pattern, we attempted to answer the following questions.

2. Methodology

The research intends to answer the questions by employing the Bibliometric Systematic literature review (B-SLR) framework.⁵² This study limits the review to the period of 2014-2024 to get insights into the trend and recognize the increasing awareness of consumers towards sustainable F&B. This decade was selected for the study, as research production related to sustainable consumer behavior saw an increase after the UN defined the ‘Sustainable Development Goals’(SDGs) in 2015.¹³ In the context of digital marketing, this period is considered promising for e-commerce.⁵³ In the year 2014, Deloitte reported that the top 250 online retailers registered a growth of 25% for the first time ever.⁵⁴ Furthermore, in 2014, worldwide retail sales exceeded $1 trillion and witnessed a growth rate of 19.4%. In addition, we followed the suggestions given by well validated study findings,⁵⁵ advocating the selection of literature from the year of emergence as an inclusion criterion. Therefore, keeping the above-mentioned suggestions in mind, 2014 was selected as the base year for this review.

The present study applies the bibliometric systematic literature review (B-SLR) framework.⁵² The B-SLR method was used because it is well-suited to the context of management studies and can be applied where literature reviews require a detailed examination of a specific research domain.⁵⁶ Another reason for employing this method was to outline and synthesize existing literature in the domain of sustainable digital marketing and to position new contributions. First, we scrutinized the literature on sustainable foods, beverages, and digital marketing to build an overview of the research stream and implement a set of representative keywords for database research. Following the B-SLR framework, we outlined our inclusion and exclusion criteria before approaching the data-collection process. To do this, we leveraged a comprehensive set of key definitions in the field of inquiry.^55,57 We employed PRISMA as the reporting guideline to identify, select, appraise, and synthesize studies from the literature.⁵⁸ PRISMA was used to narrow down the set of studies that were less relevant to the review and to increase transparency.⁵⁹We defined the search query as follows: (TITLE-ABS-KEY(“online sales” OR “digital marketing” OR “online marketing” OR “internet marketing” OR “social media marketing” OR “e-commerce” OR “mobile commerce” OR “quick commerce”))AND (TITLE-ABS-KEY (“environmental impact” OR “carbon footprint” OR “sustainable food” OR “sustainable beverage” OR “sustainable drinks” OR “eco-friendly food” OR “green food” OR “organic food” OR “environmental labelling” OR “Ecolabels” OR “sustainable food production”)). A multi-stage inclusion and exclusion process was used to refine the sample studies following a well-validated set of criteria.⁶⁰

To qualify, articles had to be included in the Scopus database. This database was selected for the study, as it is the largest existing multidisciplinary database for research. There are approximately 27,950 peer-reviewed journals indexed in Scopus.⁵⁷ The quality and peer review in Scopus provide a solid foundation for research. Another reason for selecting Scopus over the Web of Science is the coverage of content.⁶¹ In addition, Scopus is known for its reliability and reduced risk of bias.⁶² Google Scholar was used to reduce location bias, and Google search was employed to retrieve reports and official publications.

Journal articles should be peer-reviewed, and the language of publication must be English, with full text available. In total, we retrieved 266 articles from the Scope database and 21 articles from Google Scholar and Google searches. After removing the duplicates, screening resulted in obtaining 271 articles.

We further refined the dataset after cross-validating the search results by removing ineligible entries. Additionally, we screened the raw dataset to exclude studies that did not match the description of consumption behavior and strategies promoting ethical food purchases as an outcome. This resulted in 204 entries being removed.

Of the 67 full-text articles accessed for eligibility, we removed 14 articles based on their findings, which were not relevant to the research question. As inclusion criteria, we also included articles involving literature reviews (03), case-based evidence (07), and text mining (01), thereby totalling the total and final number of articles to 53. Sensitivity analyses were performed by employing leave-one-out analysis, a method that is well known for its robustness.⁶³ We evaluated the impact of excluding studies with a high Risk of Bias on the robustness of the results. We also evaluated the impact of excluding studies that did not consider clustering.

Next, each author independently carried out the screening process by assessing the inclusion and exclusion of Krippendorff’s alpha coefficient.⁶⁴ Before the rating exercise, the authors underwent a training session that included familiarizing them with the rating scheme, practising rating exercises, and discussion to clarify any ambiguities. The confidence intervals were determined at the 95% level with 1000 bootstrap iterations. The rated data were then input into the web-based statistical package, K-Alpha Calculator. The analysis provided a reliability coefficient for the coding scheme, indicating the extent of agreement among raters. The resulting Krippendorff’s alpha coefficient was 0.775, indicated the desired result for the study.⁵² Figure 1 depicts the PRISMA 2020 flowchart that illustrates the search procedure.

Figure 1. Prisma flowchart (Page et al., 2021).

To ensure that the exclusion criteria for databases did not result in bias, we followed the recommendations outlined in the literature.^65–67 Bias related to the review design was addressed through a comprehensive inclusion and exclusion process and by calculating Krippendroff’s alpha.⁵² Location bias was addressed using specific filters. However, issues related to selection bias were reduced by removing ambiguity.⁶⁶ The extracted documents were read independently to obtain key research topics within each cluster. Disagreements between the authors for the final set of studies were resolved by detailed discussion and developing a consensus with reasons for final decisions of exclusion at full text recorded against citations.⁶⁸ Once a satisfactory level of agreement among the authors was reached, the minimum cluster size was determined (n = 4). We assessed and ranked the documents based on their representation to form four clusters: 1. Brand Impact 2. Brand Logistics 3. Brand Identity 4. Brand Economics. The final dataset was used to perform a bibliometric analysis using the bibliometrix package in R Studio (https://www.bibliometrix.org).

3. Results and discussion

3.1 Annual scientific production of articles

Figure 2 illustrates the yearly distribution of articles published from the year 2014-2024. The data revealed consistency in scientific output from 2015 to 2016, followed by a substantial rise in publications from 2018 onward, with a sharp peak observed in 2019 ( Figure 2). This trend indicates growing research activity, as these years saw the immense popularity of e-commerce platforms across the world. Interestingly, 2019 saw a decline and the post 2020 annual article again saw a rise. From 2020 onward, there was a clear upward trajectory in scientific output, with a sharp increase by 2023. With an upward trend for 2024, this suggests an expanding interest and investment in the field, with a growing number of researchers contributing to the body of knowledge, particularly in the last decade.

Figure 2. Annual scientific production.

3.2 Keywords distribution (Tree map)

The tree map represents research topics from to 2014-2024 highlighting keywords related to e-commerce and sustainability. As can be seen in Figure 3, e-commerce has been a dominant theme, highlighting its importance and coverage in the last decade. The tree map also highlights research areas such as carbon footprint, “sustainable development,” and “packaging”, which further suggests the emphasis of researchers on sustainability in commerce. The emergence of keywords, decision making, and consumer behavior suggests that research attempts to reveal consumers’ interaction with e-commerce and sustainability efforts. Furthermore, the distribution of keywords reveals the interpretability of ‘sustainability in food’ as a research topic. The analysis also revealed recent and broad topics in the domain of sustainability of F&B.

Figure 3. Tree map.

3.3 Sankey diagram (Three field Plot)

The three field plots show research from multiple countries and their links with specific domains. The diagram further reveals that topics such as e-commerce and sustainability appeared as central themes ( Figure 4). The diagram shows that universities on the right-hand side have strong contributions to research in various domains. There is also a visible flow of research focus areas from different countries to universities, indicating possible international collaboration or research distribution.

Figure 4. Three field plot.

The Sankey diagram lists the following attributes as: 1. AU_CO (Author Country): The Diagram also lists various countries, such as France, India, Turkey, Germany, USA, China, Italy, Thailand, and Malaysia, as countries represented by the authors. 2. DE (Domain/Topic): This reflects research topics such as e-commerce, organic food, sustainability, consumer behavior, carbon emissions, city logistics, environmental impact, and digital marketing as the focus areas of research. 3. AU_UN (Author University): List universities such as Roma Tre University, Khon Kaen University, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Henan Polytechnic University, Bursa Uludağ University, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and the University of Michigan. It can be said that France is an active country researching this domain and their focused themes are ‘e-commerce’ and ‘organic food.’ India is the second leading country focusing on ‘sustainability,’ ‘digital marketing,’ ‘online shopping’ and ‘consumer.’ Major countries such as the USA, China, and Germany have comparatively less output linked with the ‘sustainability’ theme, which indicates a bright scope for further research. In terms of collaboration, countries such as China, India, Italy, and France depict multiple linkages, indicating strong collaboration across diverse research domains and universities.

3.4 Country-wise scientific production

Figure 5 illustrates the scientific production in various countries based on the frequency of publishing articles. China and the USA are the leading contributors with the highest frequency of scientific publications, reflecting their dominant roles in global research output. This further indicates that the broad area of research carried out in these countries is covered under the theme of sustainable food marketing.

Figure 5. Country wise scientific production.

3.5 Most cited countries

The line graph illustrates the post-article production trends covering citations. As shown in Figure 6, China had 280 citations, immediately followed by the USA with 107 citations. Norway ranks second with 51 citations, and Italy ranks fourth with 41 citations. Other countries, such as India (33), Poland (20), and France (18), show comparatively few citations. A possible reason for the low citation rates of papers from a few countries is a lack of confidence among readers.⁶⁹

Figure 6. Most cited countries.

3.6 CoWord network

The network visualization map in Figure 7 illustrates the relationships and co-occurrences of the various research topics. The central node, “electronic commerce,” is the most prominent, indicating its strong connection with other related areas such as “environmental impact”, “sustainable development,” “carbon footprint,” “sales” and “consumer behaviour.” The size of the nodes reflects the importance or frequency of the terms, whereas the thickness of the lines represents the strength of the connection between topics. Topics such as “greenhouse emissions,” “supply chain,” and “green economy” are clustered around green brands, showing their relevance to the field. Other smaller clusters, like “commercial phenomena” and “waste disposal,” are also present but less connected to the central theme.

Figure 7. CoWord network.

We followed a manual clustering approach to evaluate the relevance of each set of studies. Manual screening was adopted over the algorithmic screening method to add a layer of expert judgment, which is otherwise difficult to establish. In addition, owing to the small number of studies and their nuanced outcomes, algorithmic methods might lack the necessary understanding. After the initial screening, we finalized a set of relevant articles. In the second step, researchers read all the papers to extract common areas of research, methodologies, and findings. Subsequently, categories were created to group similar articles. Within each identified cluster, we identified themes related to sustainability and digital marketing that connected the papers. Based on the commonalities in the identified themes and subthemes, we identified four clusters. As shown in Figure 7, there are four clearly visible clusters with the following colors: 1. Green, Blue, Purple, and Red. Based on these clusters, we identified the emerging research potential of sustainable branding and digital marketing in general.

4. Implications and research gaps

These findings make theoretical contributions to the field of sustainable digital marketing. This review advances existing understanding by mapping studies related to digital marketing, consumer decision-making, preferences, engagement, and digital channels using bibliometric techniques such as co-occurrence, citation analysis, three field plots, and emerging trends. Through the integration of these methods, we identified major thematic clusters that validate the interdisciplinary nature of digital channels, consumer behavior, economics, and consumer preferences. Using the 5W1H framework, this study devises a structured approach to understand the enablers of digital marketing strategies such as assessing brand impact, logistics, brand identity, and economics. Furthermore, this research presents a novel understanding of under-investigated areas in the broad domain of digital marketing and sustainability.

This study highlights the urgent need for novel understanding of sustainable F&B digital marketing strategies. Through an in-depth analysis of collaborations, publication output, citation count, and co-occurrence of research topics, this research aims to synthesize evidence on digital marketing strategies involving sustainable F&B. This review is an attempt to consolidate the findings in this area of research and devise meaningful strategies that are otherwise fragmented.

Descriptive data highlight the focus of the literature on digital marketing strategies for sustainable F&B brands over the last decade, with most articles published between 2020 and 2024. Publications from 2020 onward witnessed a significant rise due to high emphasis on sustainability and green marketing post the COVID-19 era. Notably, the most cited country, that is, China with 280 citations, leads the way with a huge margin, followed by the US with 107 citations. This highlights China’s research emphasis and contributions in this domain. In addition, the highly cited contributions published between 2014 and 2021 have especially focused on the purchase determinants, intentions, and behavior of consumers towards online purchases of sustainable foods.^70–74 We also observed that most of these studies are quantitative in nature. Overall, the data suggest an increasing interest from researchers in determining strategies for sustainable F&B brands in the digital space.

The research questions (RQ1) framed to guide this study can be addressed by pointing out a notable rise in the number of studies covering this broad domain. In addition, studies on the strategies adopted by e-commerce platforms to market sustainable F&B are gaining attention. Overall, the analysis of studies reveals that as consumers tend to buy more from online platforms, digital strategies are also evolving with this trend. The use of advanced technologies such as AI is disrupting the marketplace, as marketers continue to leverage data and technology to optimize marketing.¹⁹

The analysis revealed that the studies are guided by different perspectives covered by a broad area of research (RQ2). Based on the analysis, this study provides a strategic framework for brands to promote sustainable F&B through digital marketing channels. The results indicate a significant growth in research over the last decade, revealing collaboration and scientific potential. Furthermore, this review also points out an upward trend in the area of research, covering key keywords such as e-commerce, sustainability, and carbon footprints. To understand the influence of the four dominant strategic perspectives, we grouped them into four clusters based on impact: logistics, marketing, and economics. The clusters were identified based on the overall impression of the brand’s perception in the market.

Based on CoWord analysis, this study identified relationships and interactions between the topics researched and emerging research areas (RQ3). Interestingly, the investigation revealed that most of the research highlighted the perspectives of consumers; hence, existing research has not covered the strategic point of view. In addition, studies have measured behavior, experience, trust, and intentions, whereas the inside-out and outside-in perspectives of strategists are missing in the available literature. The perspectives linked with policy frameworks, incentives, or price regulation are few grey areas that can be covered in future research. A detailed description of the gray areas is provided in Table 1.

Based on the analysis, the following strategies can be suggested for future research. As illustrated in Figure 8, four clusters were identified. A description of resulting clusters is as under.

Figure 8. Areas for future research.

4.4 Green brand economics

This cluster integrates studies covering the determinants of organic online shopping, willingness to pay.^13,90 Brand managers can effectively use emerging technologies such as platform services to forecast and drive demand to manage inventory efficiently.⁹¹ In addition, practitioners can explore future possibilities associated with green brands by prioritizing green innovation and acquisition in F&B.⁹² Leveraging green brands in the F&B industry as strategic assets can reinforce organizations’ sustainability goals by shaping trends within the marketplace. Future studies should capture the value aspects of the customer, including conversion rates and time taken to convert, in addition to gauging consumer willingness to purchase green F&B products. As e-commerce is evolving rapidly, brands need to adjust their strategies according to organizational goals.

From a strategic perspective, we formulated a strategy grid based on the clusters retrieved from a set of studies ( Figure 9). As can be seen in the four quadrants, brands can use the underlying strategies to devise ways forward. For ease of use and understanding, brand managers can select a set of priorities to obtain a desired strategy that can be implemented. Therefore, from a strategic point of view, this study adds value to emerging sustainable brands by setting their foot in the domain of digital marketing.

Figure 9. Strategy grid for brands.

Current study provides meaningful insights to marketers and researchers. Marketers looking to develop brand-specific strategies can use the research findings by identifying their priorities. This will not only help the brands engage effectively with the customers but would also ensure the longevity of business profits . Additionally, researchers interested in sustainable brand strategies can use the findings to plan for studies on the identified topics by observing the research trends, as well as research gaps in this domain. Additionally, journal editorial boards can set standards for scholarly journals against these findings and advance guidelines for publishing research on the sustainability front.

5. Theoretical contributions/Advancements:

The review identifies clusters of variables that shape integrated marketing across different F&B categories. Based on the literature, we have identified several under-researched areas within each cluster and propose future research directions. In the context of modern-day marketing, organizations gather market intelligence that enables them to gain competitive advantage. This study advances the existing literature on brand identity⁹³ by proposing new areas of research that can assist organizations in refining their overall brand strategy. It contributes to the resource-based view by strengthening the argument that a firm’s competitive advantage is fundamentally derived from its unique resources and capabilities.^94,95 The findings also enrich the resource orchestration framework⁹⁶ to direct specific managerial actions toward sustainable F&B brands. Therefore, examining the role of these resources and their impact on brand awareness, brand equity, and ultimate consumer behavior can offer valuable insights into devising strategies aligned with sustainable F&B brands. Given the relevance of sustainability and consumer-focused actions ( Figure 9), the findings suggest that in line with the evolution of resource-based logic, firms can leverage the competitive dynamics that lead to market advantage and improve performance. Thus, this review extends the resource-based view in the context of digital branding by emphasizing the relationship between strategic resources and firm performance.

This study adds a key contribution to the literature in the resource orchestration category by highlighting the importance of structuring a firm’s brand resource portfolio. It also argues that combining resources and transforming them into capabilities can lead to positive outcomes for digital brands. This study enriches the literature by reviewing scholarly research on digital marketing and sustainable F&B brands. The review sought to close the gap between what is already known in the domain of F&B marketing and what needs to be known in shaping strategies for brands operating in the digital sphere. Moreover, the present also study provides valuable insights for practitioners and researchers by providing a roadmap for the identification of future research areas. Being an underexplored domain in digital marketing, brands can utilize the outcomes of this study to influence the decision-making process of consumers by setting a priority embedded in the digital marketing space.

6. Conclusion, limitations and future research agenda:

This study attempts to highlight the research on sustainable digital marketing to underline strategies for digital marketers. The review explored the Scopus database for this purpose and retrieved scholarly articles for analysis. This systematic review synthesizes evidence from 53 studies to affirm that in digital brand marketing, the best resource for a firm is its brand attributes, which can be applied to diverse marketing scenarios. Additionally, this study stresses the combination of strategic brand assets with a firm’s overall objectives to elevate business performance. This review offers valuable insights for practitioners by connecting traditional brand attributes with digital marketing, while also identifying prospects for future research.

Despite the application of well-validated processes, this study had several limitations. First, the database selected for article retrieval was only Scopus and did not include the Web of Science database, which limits the number of articles that were retrieved using keywords. In addition, the documents were explored using only a limited set of keywords; hence, other keywords that could have been relevant were not considered. Furthermore, the coverage of the articles determined was from to 2014-2024, resulting in a limited number of research articles. In future research, Digital Marketing innovation and the implementation of digital marketing strategies can be conducted. More specifically, future studies can be designed by considering the specific role of social media strategies for digital marketing and sustainability. A quantitative study probing digital brand attributes in F&B marketing and their impact on consumer decision making can provide detailed insights into strategic brand perspectives.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

There was no requirement for ethical permission.