Meat Substitutes in Sustainability Context: A Content Analysis of Consumer Attitudes

Abstract

Food consumption affects the environment because it requires the usage of water, land, and oil resources. In particular, the consumption of red meat is associated with sustainability issues. Replacing meat with plant-based meat substitutes offers a useful way of reducing the burden that meat consumption places on the environment and dealing with issues regarding animal welfare. However, consumer acceptance of such products is low in some countries. The purpose of this paper is to clarify consumer attitudes toward meat substitutes and discuss them from a marketing perspective. The findings of this study, which are based on content analyses of web forums in Turkey, indicate that negative consumer perceptions can be categorized into three main dimensions: unhealthy, unusual, and tasteless. A marketing perceptive is used to discuss the findings.

Keywords:

• Content analysis
• food consumption
• marketing
• meat substitutes
• sustainability

Notes

1 The average beef prices for Germany and Spain are based on total volume and retail price data posted by Euromonitor and cross-checked with different online resources (Euromonitor International, 2019a; Eurostat, 2020; Numbeo, 2020).