Abstract
Cultured meat, as a product of recent advancement in food technology, might become a viable alternative source of protein to traditional meat. As such, cultured meat production is disruptive as it has the potential to change the demand for traditional meats. Moreover, it has been claimed it can be more sustainable regarding the environment and that it is, perhaps, a solution to animal welfare issues. This study aimed at investigating associations between the consumer groups and demographic and psychographic factors as well as identifying distinct consumer groups based on their current willingness to engage with cultured meat. Four European countries were studied: the Netherlands (NL), the United Kingdom (UK), France (FR) and Spain (ES). A sample of 1291 responses from all four countries was collected between February 2017 and March 2019. Cluster analysis was used, resulting in three groups in the NL and UK, and two groups in FR and ES. The results suggest that Dutch consumers are the most willing to engage with cultured meat. Food neophobia and food technology neophobia seem to distinguish the groups the clearest. Moreover, there is some evidence that food cultural differences among the four countries seem to be also influencing consumers’ decision.
Highlights
Reducing the reliance of growing livestock and as such, reducing meat consumption, is widely acknowledged as a means to mitigate climate change [1,2,3,4]
This study found that those consumers looking to reduce their meat consumption were more willing to engage with cultured meat
This study found that higher levels of food neophobia resulted in a lower willingness to engage with cultured meat
Summary
Reducing the reliance of growing livestock and as such, reducing meat consumption, is widely acknowledged as a means to mitigate climate change [1,2,3,4]. Cultured meat is an alternative source of animal-based proteins to traditional meat obtained from growing livestock. It has the potential to become a viable alternative to traditional livestock meat and, as such, alter the production and demand of meat in the future. One argument for supporting cultured meat would be that it could be more sustainable, reducing the considerable need for land to produce food to cater to a growing world population. Cultured meat production would solve issues of animal-transmitted diseases and animal welfare. Invaluable to the success of any new paradigm-shifting food concept, including cultured meat, is to assess the extent to which consumers would accept it as a source of protein and adopt it in their diet. The willingness to accept and engage with cultured meat in different countries has been at the centre of various studies in recent years [10,11,12,13]
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