Project description:The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of sociodemographic characteristics on willingness to try (WTT), regularly eat (WTE), or pay (WTP) for artificial meat, its expected societal challenges and general acceptance as well as its future potential development in Germany. Answers to an online questionnaire by 3,558 potential German adult consumers were evaluated. About 63% of the respondents thought this novel food was promising/acceptable. The vast majority (70%) stated that they would be willing to try it, with the most important drivers being ethics, curiosity and eco-friendliness. Around 57% of the participants said they would be willing to eat artificial meat regularly. Most of the respondents (40%) were willing to pay the same price for artificial as for conventional meat. In terms of its future potential, almost 75% of respondents believed that this new product would become commercialized in more than five years and that it was perceived as a solution that is both more ethical (67%) and more environmentally friendly (58%) than traditional meat. In addition, there were significant impacts of demographic factors on the willingness to engage with artificial meat. For example, high WTT and WTE were found among young male respondents (18-30 years of age), males that rarely consumed meat or had a low income (< €1,500). This also applied to the female respondents, who, however, belonged to higher income classes. Young German consumers with a high level of education or income up to €3,000 as well as consumers who did not eat meat had a high WTP for this novel food. In addition, respondents' positive opinion and acceptance of artificial meat had a positive influence on WTT and WTP. These results are important for the discussion of a paradigm shift in global meat production with respect to sustainability, demand for meat and the adoption of new food products.
Project description:The interest for artificial meat has recently expanded. However, from the literature, perception of artificial meat in China is not well known. A survey was thus carried out to investigate Chinese attitudes toward artificial meat. The answers of 4666 respondents concluded that 19.9% and 9.6% of them were definitely willing and unwilling to try artificial meat respectively, whereas 47.2% were not willing to eat it regularly, and 87.2% were willing to pay less for it compared to conventional meat. Finally, 52.9% of them will accept artificial meat as an alternative to conventional meat. Emotional resistance such as the perception of "absurdity or disgusting" would lead to no willingness to eat artificial meat regularly. The main concerns were related to safety and unnaturalness, but less to ethical and environmental issues as in Western countries. Nearly half of the respondents would like artificial meat to be safe, tasty, and nutritional. Whereas these expectations have low effects on willingness to try, they may induce consumers' rejection to eat artificial meat regularly, underlying the weak relationship between wishes to try and to eat regularly. Thus, potential acceptance of artificial meat in China depends on Chinese catering culture, perception of food and traditional philosophy.
Project description:Cultured meat has been proposed as an alternative source of protein to overcome the environmental and ethical problems associated with conventional meat production. However, the lack of consumers' acceptance could be a major barrier to the introduction of cultured meat on a large scale. Despite Brazil being one of the countries that consumes the most meat per capita, little is known about Brazilian consumers' preferences for alternative meat. The objective of this study is to identify which attributes influence consumers to possibly replace conventional beef meat with cultured meat in Brazil. An online survey was conducted, and Best-worst scaling methodology was applied to a sample of 225 consumers. The sampling leaned towards educated and employed residents of the southeast region of Brazil, which might not fully represent the Brazilian population. Despite limitations in terms of the sampling demographic, overall, Brazilians appear to be willing to consume cultured meat: 80.9% of the sample would be willing to try it, 61.3% would be willing to eat it regularly, and 56.9% would be willing to eat cultured meat as a replacement for conventionally produced beef. Despite the focus of this study being on attributes of a hypothetical product that is not commercially available, which might pose difficulty to consumers to predict their future consumption behavior, results show that the most important attributes influencing consumers to possibly replace conventional beef meat by cultured meat in Brazil are anticipated risk of zoonotic diseases, anticipated healthiness and anticipated food safety conditions. Attributes related to benefits at a global societal level and intrinsic characteristics of cultured meat were less important.
Project description:To satisfy the increasing demand for food by the growing human population, cultured meat (also called in vitro, artificial or lab-grown meat) is presented by its advocates as a good alternative for consumers who want to be more responsible but do not wish to change their diet. This review aims to update the current knowledge on this subject by focusing on recent publications and issues not well described previously. The main conclusion is that no major advances were observed despite many new publications. Indeed, in terms of technical issues, research is still required to optimize cell culture methodology. It is also almost impossible to reproduce the diversity of meats derived from various species, breeds and cuts. Although these are not yet known, we speculated on the potential health benefits and drawbacks of cultured meat. Unlike conventional meat, cultured muscle cells may be safer, without any adjacent digestive organs. On the other hand, with this high level of cell multiplication, some dysregulation is likely as happens in cancer cells. Likewise, the control of its nutritional composition is still unclear, especially for micronutrients and iron. Regarding environmental issues, the potential advantages of cultured meat for greenhouse gas emissions are a matter of controversy, although less land will be used compared to livestock, ruminants in particular. However, more criteria need to be taken into account for a comparison with current meat production. Cultured meat will have to compete with other meat substitutes, especially plant-based alternatives. Consumer acceptance will be strongly influenced by many factors and consumers seem to dislike unnatural food. Ethically, cultured meat aims to use considerably fewer animals than conventional livestock farming. However, some animals will still have to be reared to harvest cells for the production of in vitro meat. Finally, we discussed in this review the nebulous status of cultured meat from a religious point of view. Indeed, religious authorities are still debating the question of whether in vitro meat is Kosher or Halal (e.g., compliant with Jewish or Islamic dietary laws).
Project description:The global meat production system is currently under pressure, particularly for its environmental and animal wellbeing impacts, as well as for the increasing protein demand worldwide. In this regard, cultured meat is currently a hot topic in the industrial, political, and societal arenas, revealing itself as the potential relief for the issues above. However, its high degree of novelty may hamper the extent of consumers' acceptance. This research assesses for which beliefs concerning intrinsic attributes and positive externalities, the provision of information is a sufficient tool for affecting the perception and acceptance of cultured meat on a panel of Italian consumers. Changes in perception and willingness to try, buy, and pay are assessed by measuring the variation before and after the provision of positive information related to the product. The results show that perception is affected by positive information concerning safety and nutritional characteristics, whereas the opposite occurs regarding the product flavor. Furthermore, findings reveal that, while the willingness to buy increases after providing positive information, the willingness to try does not. Finally, information on intrinsic attributes and positive externalities of the cultured meat would have to be combined with different approaches for further enhancement of consumers' perception and acceptance.
Project description:Cultured meat grown in vitro from animal cells has the potential to address many of the ethical, environmental, and public health issues associated with conventional meat production. However, as well as overcoming technical challenges to producing cultured meat, producers and advocates of the technology must consider a range of social issues, including consumer appeal and acceptance, media coverage, religious status, regulation, and potential economic impacts. Whilst much has been written on the prospects for consumer appeal and acceptance of cultured meat, less consideration has been given to the other aspects of the social world that will interact with this new technology. Here, each of these issues is considered in turn, forming a view of cultured meat as a technology with a diverse set of societal considerations and far-reaching social implications. It is argued that the potential gains from a transition to cultured meat are vast, but that cultural phenomena and institutions must be navigated carefully for this nascent industry to meet its potential.
Project description:Incentive-linked prescribing (ILP) is considered a controversial practice universally. If incentivised, physicians may prioritise meeting pharmaceutical sales targets through prescriptions, rather than considering patients' health and wellbeing. Despite the potential harms of ILP to patients and important stakeholders in the healthcare system, healthcare consumers (HCCs) which include patients and the general public often have far less awareness about the practice of pharmaceutical incentivisation of physicians. We conducted a scoping review to explore what existing research says about HCCs' perceptions of the financial relationship between physicians and pharmaceutical companies. To conduct this scoping review, we followed Arksey and O'Malley's five-stage framework: identifying research questions, identifying relevant studies, selecting eligible studies, data charting, and collating, summarising, and reporting results. We also used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses' extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR), as a guide to organise the information in this review. Quantitative and qualitative studies with patients and the general public, published in the English language were identified through searches of Scopus, Medline (OVID), EMBASE (OVID), and Google Scholar. Three themes emerged through the analysis of the 13 eligible studies: understanding of incentivisation, perceptions of hazards linked to ILP, and HCCs' suggestions to address it. We found documentation that HCCs exhibited a range of knowledge from good to insufficient about the pharmaceutical incentivisation of physicians. HCCs perceived several hazards linked to ILP such as a lack of trust in physicians and the healthcare system, the prescribing of unnecessary medications, and the negative effect on physicians' reputations in society. In addition to strong regulatory controls, it is critical that physicians self-regulate their behaviour, and publicly disclose if they have any financial ties with pharmaceutical companies. Doing so can contribute to trust between patients and physicians, an important part of patient-focused care and a contributor to user confidence in the wider health system.
Project description:This survey research sampled 1000 US (United States) consumers of meat, eggs, and dairy on their attitudes towards the welfare of farm animals and the willingness to pay for products with trustworthy welfare certifications. Most respondents (70%) reported paying attention to labels that indicate how the animals were raised and 78% believed there should be an objective third party to ensure farm animal welfare. The weighted average of the marginal willingness to pay for products raised under a trustworthy welfare certification was $0.79 for eggs (a 32% premium) and $0.96 for 1 lb. of chicken breast (a 48% premium). In addition, 57% of respondents reported they would be likely to choose a restaurant because it serves welfare-certified animal products and are also willing to pay ≥$5.00 extra per entrée. These findings suggest that many US consumers, particularly millennials, would be willing to seek out higher welfare products if they trust the label claims.
Project description:Cell-cultured meat (CM) is a novel meat product grown in vitro from animal cells, widely framed as equivalent to conventional meat but presented as produced in a more sustainable way. Despite its limited availability for human consumption, consumer acceptance of CM (e.g., willingness to purchase and consume) has been extensively investigated. A key but under-investigated assumption of these studies is that CM's sensory qualities are comparable to conventional, equivalent meat products. Therefore, the current review aims to clarify what is actually known about the sensory characteristics of CM and their potential impact on consumer acceptance. To this end, a structured scoping review of existing, peer-reviewed literature on the sensory evaluation of CM was conducted according to the PRISMA-ScR and Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines. Among the included studies (N = 26), only 5 conducted research activities that could be termed "sensory evaluation," with only 4 of those 5 studies evaluating actual CM products in some form. The remaining 21 studies based their conclusions on the sensory characteristics of CM and consequent consumer acceptance to a set of hypothetical CM products and consumption experiences, often with explicitly positive information framing. In addition, many consumer acceptance studies in the literature have the explicit goal to increase the acceptance of CM, with some authors (researchers) acting as direct CM industry affiliates; this may be a source of bias on the level of consumer acceptance toward these products. By separating what is known about CM sensory characteristics and consumer acceptance from what is merely speculated, the current review reported realistic expectations of CM's sensory characteristics within the promissory narratives of CM proponents.
Project description:Recently, meat scientists have developed an innovative amino acid-based alternative meat curing system (AAACS). However, consumer skepticism toward novel foods presents challenges regarding the acceptance of food innovations like the AAACS. Effective communication about this and other food technologies is critical. Our study was a 2 × 4 randomized factorial between-groups experiment that investigated how two peripheral cues-message frame and information source-impact attitudes toward the AAACS. We used Qualtrics to randomly assign participants to one of eight treatment groups. Each group viewed a different video about the AAACS. Then, all participants were asked about their attitudes toward the alternative meat curing system. Data were analyzed using a two-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The two-way MANOVA determined concurrently the experimental effects of message frame and information source on information recall, trust, source expertise, source credibility, and anticipated consumption behavior. A significant MANOVA was followed up using Discriminant Function Analysis (DFA). A significant main effect was found for information source. The DFA revealed only one significant underlying function and that source expertise was the most powerful discriminating variable for information source.