By Chuck Abbott
Americans declare beef is better than its plant-based or lab-grown alternatives from almost any standpoint, from taste to nutrition and environmental impact, said a Purdue University report on Wednesday.
Americans declare beef is better than its plant-based or lab-grown alternatives from almost any standpoint, from taste to nutrition and environmental impact, said a Purdue University report on Wednesday. Consumers gave slightly higher scores to “lab-grown meat” as opposed to “cell-cultured meat,” although it is the same thing.
Beef dominated the “which is better” responses from 1,200 consumers in the Purdue survey on 17 attributes, usually scoring more than 50%, and in the low 70s in a few instances, while an alternative protein got 25% or less. A quarter of respondents typically rated beef and the alternative as “about the same.”
“The biggest take-away from our alternative meat questions is that consumers still overwhelmingly prefer beef from cattle across a wide range of product attributes,” said Joseph Balagtas, the lead author of the Consumer Food Insights report, produced monthly. “And while cell-cultured meat has not yet hit the market, our study highlights that marketing — and in particular the naming of a new product or technology – can influence consumer perceptions of the product.”
Cell-cultured meat emerged a few years ago as consensus name for meat produced indoors by putting cells and a growth medium into a fermentation vat. It was superseded recently by “cultivated meat” as the industry’s preferred name.
Purdue tested “lab-grown meat” and “cell-cultured meat” in its survey and found consumers gave higher scores when lab-grown was the adjective. On environmental impact, for instance, 27% of participants said lab-grown meat was better than beef, compared to 22% for cell-cultured meat. For most attributes, the difference was a couple of percentage points in favor of lab-grown meat, although beef scored vastly higher against the rival products.
“Animal welfare is the only dimension on which consumers rated an alternative (i.e., plant-based) as better than regular beef,” said the report. Some 42% said plant-based substitutes were better, compared to 38% for beef.
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