Using environmental imperatives to reduce meat consumption: perspectives from New Zealand

Abstract

Sustainable food consumption is an important issue globally, that will intensify if current projections of population growth, urbanisation and the growing 'middle-classes' in developing countries continues. Reducing meat consumption is one approach that can help with food sustainability and security, while helping to address the problematic environmental outcomes associated with agricultural productionassuming that a reduction in meat consumption will at some point be reflected in production practices. Currently, sensory perception, health, convenience and price are more immediately influential than environmental concerns in determining meat consumption practices. Moreover, consumer culture under neoliberalism and the context of New Zealand as an agricultural nation are significant underpinning factors in lifestyle practices including food choice. In this paper, I share the perspectives of New Zealanders on meat (and meat-like) consumption and production practices in order to find out (a) what factors are prominent influences in meat consumption and (b) how these factors might be utilised to reduce meat consumption by applying them to meat-less/reduced foods. I argue that these environmental factors need to be promoted alongside known influential determinants of purchase decisions in order to make the idea of reduced-meat consumption a more attractive option for consumers.

Consumer Acceptance of Cultured Meat: An Updated Review (2018–2020)

“…As we observed in our previous review, partly due to the perception of cultured meat as unnatural, it is common for consumers to have intuitive questions about its safety [12,53,60]. More recent research builds on this theme [22,35,36]. In particular, focus group and interview participants expressed anxiety about the uncertainty on the long-term health effects of cultured meat [35], while Tucker [36] notes that such fears appear to be extensions of concerns about unnaturalness.…”

“…Recent studies further fortify this observation [21]. Tucker [36] reports focus group participants commenting that a lack of knowledge about cultured meat was a barrier for them, whilst Weinrich et al [31] identified prior knowledge about cultured meat as being conducive to positive views about its morality, and found this to be the strongest driver of acceptance. A low overall awareness of cultured meat [30], combined with research which again highlights the importance of food neophobia in cultured meat rejection, [21,23,32] means that there is plenty of room for educating the public about cultured meat, normalizing the concept, and making it more well-known.…”

“…Tucker [36] noted that many of their focus group participants spoke about the benefits of eating less meat in terms of saving money, experiencing different tastes, and benefiting their health, but oddly gave the same types of reasons for not wanting to cut down meat (price, taste, and nutrition). This suggests a complex relationship with meat from animals wrought with conflict and dissonance [50].…”

“…There is evidence that some consumers may assume cultured meat is harmful to the environment in virtue of being artificial or processed [38]. Indeed, Tucker [36] notes that while consumers did acknowledge the environmental advantages of cultured meat, these points were generally overrun by a discourse of unnaturalness. Gomez-Luciano et al [25] found that people tended to rate cultured meat as less sustainable than other alternative proteins, indicating that some intuit that cultured meat could cause environmental harm.…”

“…Unnaturalness continues to play a central role in consumers' reasons to avoid cultured meat. Indeed, this was a key theme identified in many qualitative studies [22,35,36] and appears to be a more basic objection than other barriers to acceptance, such as perceived safety or ethical problems. For example, Bryant et al [13] found that messages targeting the perceived unnaturalness failed to persuade consumers that cultured meat was, in fact, natural, or that naturalness should not matter.…”