In India and China, consumers are eager for lab-grown meat. In the US? Not as much.
STUDY: Consumers in India and China (from urban, educated, and wealthy sample) were much more interested in buying clean meat and plant-based meat, compared to Americans.
KELSEY PIPER: ‘Would you eat a burger grown from animal cells rather than a whole cow? What about a plant-based burger, once researchers finally pull off a perfect imitation of the texture and taste of a meat burger? That’s what a new study of consumer attitudes about plant-based meat and clean meat aimed to find out. Even more striking about this survey: It asked consumers in India and China, two of the largest markets in the world and two sources of growing demand for meat. The results? Consumers in China and India are substantially more open-minded about clean meat than consumers in the US — and even in the US, many meat-eating consumers are intrigued by the idea.
Researchers with the University of Bath, the Good Food Institute (a nonprofit that pushes meat alternatives), and the Hong Kong Center for Long Term Priorities asked about 3,030 consumers — approximately 1,000 in each country — to fill out a survey that included questions about what they eat today; questions intended to test their “food neophobia,” or how willing they are to try new foods; and questions about what they’d eat in a world where clean meat, plant-based meat, and conventional meat are all available. They found that consumers in India and China (from a disproportionately urban, educated, and wealthy sample) were much more interested in buying clean meat and plant-based meat, compared to Americans. In all three countries, though, there is clearly a sizable market for clean and plant-based meat…
The United States has by far the largest share of consumers who said they were not at all likely to purchase clean meat: 23.6 percent. (In China, that was only 6.7 percent, and in India, 10.7 percent.) The United States also had by far the smallest share of consumers who said they were “very or extremely” likely to purchase clean meat. In the US, 29.8 percent were very likely or extremely likely. In China, that was 59.3 percent, and in India, 48.7 percent. The numbers for plant-based meat looked a lot like the numbers for clean meat… In general, the teams pursuing clean meat are doing so because they don’t expect plant-based alternatives to be sufficient to win over consumers. This survey, though, suggests that both might be attractive to the same groups of people. Fortunately, that’s almost all people — especially in India and China’. SOURCE…
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