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# Preferences for meat substitute with plant-based proteins: an experiment with real products consumption

Leplat Mélody, Loheac Youenn, Teillet Eric

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Leplat Mélody, Loheac Youenn, Teillet Eric. Preferences for meat substitute with plant-based proteins: an experiment with real products consumption. ASFEE 2022, ASFEE, Jun 2022, Lyon, France. hal-03932558

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Submitted on 10 Jan 2023

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# Preferences for meat substitute with plant-based proteins: an experiment with real products consumption

LEPLAT Mélody<sup>a, b</sup>, LOHEAC Youenn<sup>c, d *</sup>, TEILLET Eric<sup>e</sup>

<sup>a</sup> ISEN, 20 rue Cuirassé Bretagne, 29200 Brest, France.

<sup>b</sup> UMR 6308, AMURE, IUEM, University of Brest, Plouzané, France

<sup>c</sup> Rennes School of Business, 2 Rue Robert d'Arbrissel, 35065 Rennes, France.

<sup>d</sup> CREM, UMR 6211, Université de Rennes 1, 7 place Hoche, 35065 Rennes Cedex, France

<sup>e</sup> SensoStat, Dijon, France

* Corresponding author: Rennes School of Business, 2 Rue Robert d'Arbrissel, 35065 Rennes.

Email: youenn.loheac@rennes-sb.com

**Keywords:** meat substitutes, sensory evaluation, choices experiment, real products

## EXTENDED ABSTRACT

People say that they are interested by meat reduction or meat substitution for many arguments: health, environmental and animal welfare. On this basis, firms explore new models and new supply (better meat or meat substitutes) in order to take, to keep or to increase market shares. But what consumers really do when they face to the real product? In a study with German, French and English meat consumers, Michel et al. (2021) compare expectations about taste, healthiness and environmental friendship of beef burger and two vegetable substitutes (pea and algae). These consumers expected that vegetable burgers are healthier and environmentally friendly but less tasty than beef burger.

A growing literature propose to study consumers preferences for meat substitutes that are close to meat attributes, as burgers, through choice experiments. Slade (2018) conduct a discrete choice experiment (DCE) with five burgers (natural beef, plant-based proteins, cultured meat,
each organic or not organic). 65% of their participants prefer the natural beef. The alternatives are preferred by vegetarians, younger, educated people. They underline that women prefer the plant-based proteins (PBP). Van Loo et al. (2020) conduct a DCE with 4 burgers: natural beef, pea alternative, yeast alternative and cultured meat. They consider four treatments depending on informational context: no information, information on brand, information on environmental impact of meat and alternatives, and information on technologies used for alternatives and cultured meat. 72% of participants prefer natural beef. Information has a side effect: consumers quite the market (no choice). Alternatives are preferred by vegetarians, males, younger, educated peoples. Carlsson et al. (2021) conduct a choice experiment with 4 burgers: natural beef, plant-based proteins, meat-like, cultured meat. They first endow people with a natural beef hamburger and propose them to change for an alternatives, and ask what they do if the price will change. The price matter: participants switch from natural beef to alternatives at 2/3 of price. 50% of participants do not want cultured burger even if free. Environmental and health consciousness support substitution. Apostolidis and McLeay (2019) conduct a DCE on 500g of products with various attributes: fat content, carbon footprint, method of production, type of mince, brand, region of origin, price. They consider 3 groups of consumers: meat eaters, meat reducers, vegetarians. They observe that meat reducers have higher health than environmental motivations. They underline the importance to know more on empowerment and motivation of consumers for better targeted policies (price, information, campaigns, education, labels, etc.). The results of these works are based on hypothetical choices and hypothetical products. If in panels some products really exist, it is not the case for others.

Another growing literature includes real tasting with sensory evaluation and some valuation of products and information (purchase preference -PP-, willingness to buy -WTB-, willingness to pay -WTP-). Grasso et al. (2022) evaluate sensory dimensions of three burgers (100% beef, 100% plant-based, hybrid with 60% beef and 40% vegetables) and include WTB and WTP question (even if hypothetical). In a blind tasting condition, the hybrid product is largely preferred to the two others, and the score of linking increase a little with information about product. The plant-based burger is significantly less preferred in sensory evaluations, and in WTB and WTP evaluations. Martin et al. (2021) compare au pork-based sausage with a plant-based sausage in blind tasting and in tasting with packaging information. They introduce some health and environmental information too. They measure preferences, PP and WTP. The meat is preferred to the vegetable substitute, but information from the packaging and information of health or environmental issues decrease the gap between the two products. The WTP with all
the information are very close. Bazoche et al. (2021) study the substitution between a meat meal and a vegetarian alternative (with comparable products as couscous, chili or pasta) when introducing information about health and environment. At the first stage, before any information, between 15% and 21% of participants choose the vegetarian meal. In the third stage, after two waves of information, the shares of vegetarian choice are from 24% to 35%. Those who react the more are in the group receiving environmental information (a little less for the group with health information). The study identifies a share of population who are information sensitive but does not find a strong average effect of information on vegetarian choices. These results are strong arguments to include real products or real choices in studies in order to better understand the preferences for alternatives to meat consumption.

The study we present include real products that consumers really eat. Our question is: are consumers ready to substitute their usual meat product by a plant-based proteins (PBP) product? We introduce the PBP product in a real context of consumption and a real choice between new product and usual product. As a complement of the real choice, we introduce hypothetical question about what could change their choice (price, nutritional information, environmental information, origin information or production methods).

The study is conducted at home with real consumers for two reasons. First, we wish to get closer to the real context of consumption. Second, we adapt the design to the Covid-19 restrictions. All participants answer in an online questionnaire which guide them in the design. The participants are consumers of sliced products, take part of food purchases in their home. They could be omnivore or flexitarian (restricted-omnivore / meat reducer), but not vegetarians. The products tested are sliced products from PBP. The study use methods from sensory evaluation and economic choices.

The products tested in the study are slices of PBP products with two aromas (experimental processed food). The first week of experiment, participants received a number of slices of the PBP based on their week habit consumption (multiples of two) though a drive. Participants are invited to consume the product as they do for their usual product. They follow the online instructions for questions: Description of the meal (photo), number of people, general liking (+ appearance, smell, meal), and have a choice about the product for the second week. The day of consumption, we ask them the following non hypothetical question: "For the week 2, do you prefer to receive (at the drive) the same product (PBP) or do you prefer to receive your usual
product?” (we have the information of the usual product, but for logistical reason we give them a gift card in supermarket). We add hypothetical question on what could change their choice. The second week, they receive the PBP product or their usual product (gift card). 166 subjects from Dijon area participated to this study in December 2020. They are 55% women and the average age is 42 years. They are selected on their meat consumption (omnivore or restricted omnivore / flexitarian / meat reducer): 74.7% declare to have omnivore diet and 25.3% declare to have flexitarian diet.

In this study, we observe the consumption of the PBP in a natural environment (real consumption at home) and choice between keep or quite. 38% of participants keep the PBP product for the second week (rather than come back to their usual sliced product). We do not observe any significant difference between the two aromas, nor between men and women. There is a significant difference given the diet: restricted omnivores (52%) keep more the PBP product than the full omnivores (33%). The liking of the meal where the PBP product was introduced play an important role in adoption for both diet, even if liking is higher for flexitarians. The average liking of keepers is 6.17 (on a scale from 1 to 9) and of quitters is 4.16 (the difference is highly significant. The price paid for the usual product does not have any effect on the decision to keep or to quite. Last, the food technology neophobia (FTN) has a significant negative impact on keeping the PBP product. Participants with higher FTN score quite more the PBP product. This not observed with food neophobia. The traditional socio-demographic characters does not play in the decision to keep the new product. To summarize, the keeper is a flexitarian, a consumer with high liking rate and a low food technology neophobia.

After observing these real behaviors, we are interesting by product characteristics that could change (hypothetically) the decision of the quitters (N=103). We discuss four categories of characteristics: price (lower than usual product), ingredients' origin, ingredients' methods of production, and environmental and nutritional improvement. Small reductions in price (from 10 to 30 cents) change the decision for 5% of quitters, a reduction by 40 cents doubles the change, but a reduction by 50 cents changes the decision of 25%. About the origin of ingredients, European origin has the same effect than a price reduction equal to 40 cents. French origin of ingredients change the decisions of more than 40% of quitters. This is the same (between 35% and 40%) for the other characteristics: product without GMO, product with ingredients from organic agriculture, an improvement in the environmental impact and an
improvement in the nutritional score (Nutriscore from C to B, or from D to C, for instance). We
will explore analytically the reasons these changes. The results provide some arguments for
various strategies given the characteristics the product could have. In conclusion, even when
the produce is consumed, a market exits, with flexitarians and with omnivores too.

REFERENCES

Apostolidis C., McLeay F. (2019). To meat or not to meat? Comparing empowered meat consumers' and anti-consumers' preferences for sustainability labels. *Food Quality and Preference, 77*, 109-122.

Bazoche P., Guinet N., Poret S., Teyssier S. (2021). Does the provision of information increase the substitution of animal proteins with plant-based proteins? An experimental investigation into consumer choices. *Working Paper SMART-LERECO*, n°21-07.

Carlsson F., Kataria M., Lampi E. (2021). How much does it take? Willingness to switch to meat substitutes. University of Gothenburg, Working papers in Economics, n°798

Grasso S., Rondoni A., Bari R., Smith R., Mansilla, N. (2022). Effect of information on consumers' sensory evaluation of beef, plant-based and hybrid beef burgers. *Food Quality and Preference, 96*, 104417

Martin C., Lange C., Marette S. (2021). Importance of additional information, as a complement to information coming from packaging, to promote meat substitutes: A case study on a sausage based on vegetable proteins. *Food Quality and Preference, 87*, 104058

Michel F., Knaapila A., Hartmann C., Siegrist M. (2021). A multi-national comparison of meat eaters' attitudes and expectations for burgers containing beef, pea or algae protein. *Food Quality and Preference, 91*, 104195

Slade P. (2018). If you build it, will they eat it? Consumer preferences for plant-based and cultured meat burgers. *Appetite, 125*, 428-437.

Van Loo E.J., Caputo V., Lusk J.L. (2020). Consumer preferences for farm-raised meat, lab-grown meat, and plant-based meat alternatives: Does information or brand matter? *Food Policy, 95*, 101931.