Meat alternatives preferred if much cheaper than the real thing

Not many people are opposed to eating plant-based meat alternatives, a recent survey of 2100 customers in the US shows. The study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) was conducted by marketing researchers from the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), Humboldt University Berlin and Georg August University Göttingen. According to the results, the price of meat alternatives was the most decisive factor for their acceptance, while similarity to meat did not matter that much. Although, when both options were priced the same, respondents often favoured the animal product.

While the supply of plant-based alternatives has been growing, there is little data on the general acceptance of meat alternatives, what conditions are required to make them more attractive, and whether or not they are just a fad, according to economist Steffen Jahn, interim professor at the Chair of Marketing & Innovation at MLU. He teamed up with scientists from Humboldt University Berlin and Georg August University Göttingen to study consumer preferences relating to meat and meat substitutes.

“The United States is a country with one of the highest rates of meat consumption in the world. For example, around 25 kilograms of beef was consumed per capita alone in 2023,” Jahn said.

In the first part of the study, participants were asked to choose one of four burger alternatives. These were accompanied by pictures and written descriptions: a real beef burger, a plant-based burger that imitated meat (analogue), a vegetarian burger that only imitated the appearance but not the taste or texture of meat (semi-analogue) and a falafel burger (non-analogue).

Unsurprisingly, three-quarters of the respondents chose the meat burger. “However, we did not expect to find that the falafel burger was the most popular meat alternative, while the analogue burger came in last place. This contradicts the widespread assumption that meat substitutes are only competitive if they are as close as possible to the original,” Jahn said. The data also show that the majority of consumers would opt for a meat alternative if no meat burger was on offer. Only a third would refuse to eat plant-based alternatives altogether.

A subsequent experiment analysed how price influenced the respondents’ preferences. “Meat alternatives are currently more expensive than meat, which is why there are discussions about adjusting the prices into alignment. However, we found that price parity has no real effect on people’s choices,” Jahn said. Only when meat substitutes were significantly less expensive than their animal counterparts did the researchers find a noticeable change in consumer behaviour. Lowering the price of the analogue burger by 10%, for example, lead to an expected 14% increase in sales. If the alternatives were about half of the price of the meat burger, the number of people opting for a plant-based alternative would double. Interestingly, even though men are the more dedicated meat eaters, the survey found that an attractive price makes them more willing than women to change their behaviour. Even those who had never tried a meat substitute before would opt for it, if they could benefit from a proper price advantage.

The research findings indicate for food manufacturers that they might be able to increase their sales of vegetarian or vegan alternatives if they offered meat substitutes at lower prices than the meat options. The study also highlights that an exact imitation of meat is not as important for the consumers as a lower price.

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