Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Considerable evidence indicates that consumers are ambivalent about accepting cell-cultured meats that promise to solve many of the livestock-related environmental, health, and ethical challenges in meat production. It is therefore likely to be consumer behaviors towards this novel protein source that will determine market viability and growth. The goal of this proposal is to identify consideration factors influencing consumer perceptions and attitudes towards CCM across various dimensions, including ethical, legal, environmental, health, cultural, and social. There are two specific objectives. Specific Objective #1 is to determine the basis for consumer perceptions and preferences towards CCM. Our approach involves focus groups and a nationally representative survey to understand US consumers' perceptions and preferences for CCM, as well as important consideration factors that can shape CCM attitudes. Specific Objective #2 is to determine the effects of information messaging, related to consideration factors about CCM, on consumer perceptions and attitudes. Our approach will involve utilizing information messaging, highlighting benefits of CCM across different dimensions, in neuromarketing applications to promote higher preferences for cultured meat compared to conventional alternatives. The rationale for the proposed studies is that once the impact of nudges is identified in the context of cell-cultured meat products, these nudges can be leveraged to help address pressing challenges in the current food system. These informational nudges help consumers gain a better understanding of CCM, addressing misconceptions to foster acceptance. This will enable use to reach our long-term goal of accelerating the development of science-based market communication strategies for increasing consumer adoption of CCM.The overall objective for this application is to identify consideration factors influencing consumer perceptions, attitudes, and behavioral intention toward cell-cultured meat across various dimensions, including ethical, legal, environmental, health, cultural, and social. Additionally, we will develop informational nudges, addressing each of the different consideration factors, and employing neuromarketing techniques (relying on brain response activity) to evaluate the effectiveness of the nudges in stimulating greater acceptance of cultured meat alternatives. The central hypothesis for the proposed research is that informing U.S. consumers about benefits associated with consideration factors related to cell-cultured meats will ameliorate barriers to adopting this technology by increasing the consumer knowledge during purchasing decisions for the CCM meat products. This hypothesis was formulated based on strong preliminary findings of small-scale focus groups using convenience sampling methods. The focus groups' results indicate that consumers have an elevated level of mistrust, apprehension, or negative preconceived notions related to the novel concept of food biotechnology for CCM, while instincts led consumers to choose conventionally produced meat products from livestock operations as a more comfortable alternative. Our diverse team of investigators is especially well-prepared to conduct the proposed work as it consists of social science research scientists, a neuro-economist, behavioral economists, and food supply chains experts with a long-standing collaborative history as shown by a track record of peer-reviewed publications. Additionally, our research environment is especially conducive for the successful completion of the work as we have access to the necessary food sensory laboratories, local test-market population for new food products, and multidisciplinary clinical research suites.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
Considerable evidence indicates that consumers are ambivalent about accepting cell-cultured meats that promise to solve many of the livestock-related environmental, health, and ethical challenges in meat production. It is therefore likely to be consumer behaviors towards this novel protein source that will determine market viability and growth. The goal of this proposal is to identify consideration factors influencing consumer perceptions and attitudes towards CCM across various dimensions, including ethical, legal, environmental, health, cultural, and social. There are two specific objectives. Specific Objective #1 is to determine the basis for consumer perceptions and preferences towards CCM. Our approach involves focus groups and a nationally representative survey to understand US consumers' perceptions and preferences for CCM, as well as important consideration factors that can shape CCM attitudes. Specific Objective #2 is to determine the effects of information messaging, related to consideration factors about CCM, on consumer perceptions and attitudes. Our approach will involve utilizing information messaging, highlighting benefits of CCM across different dimensions, in neuromarketing applications to promote higher preferences for cultured meat compared to conventional alternatives. The rationale for the proposed studies is that once the impact of nudges is identified in the context of cell-cultured meat products, these nudges can be leveraged to help address pressing challenges in the current food system. These informational nudges help consumers gain a better understanding of CCM, addressing misconceptions to foster acceptance. This will enable use to reach our longterm goal of accelerating the development of science-based market communication strategies for increasing consumer adoption of CCM.
Project Methods
Specific Objective #1: Determine the basis for consumer perceptions and preferences toward cell-cultured meats.Methodology: The first step toward determining the current consumer perceptions and preferences for CCM is to conduct focus groups. Prior to beginning study procedures involving human subjects, a review will be conducted to ensure that there is no more than minimal risk (or determined as exempt) by submitting the study to the University of Florida Institutional Review Board (IRB). One focus group will be conducted where participants are recruited from residents in the Jacksonville, FL, area, while a second focus group will recruit participants from among residents in the New York City, NY, area; the combination of which helps obtain a diverse sample of urban perspectives from across the United States, where CCM is most likely to be encountered by large populations. In each focus group, there will be 4 in-person sessions that will last approximately 1-1.5 hours each. Each session will accommodate 10 respondents, targeting a total of 40 respondents per location. The focus group participants will be screened prior to participation to ensure they have not previously participated in similar focus groups about CCM and that they are food shoppers.The results and findings from the first step are incorporated into the second step towards achieving Specific Objective #1. The second step is centered on design, development, and launch of a nationally representative survey. Prior to proceeding with the research involving human subjects, a review will be conducted by the University of Florida IRB. The services of Qualtrics, a leading survey management platform and web-based opt-in panel provider, will be enlisted to recruit a sample of adult consumers (18 years and older) throughout the U.S. population. Eligible respondents will be primary shoppers in their household (i.e., responsible for at least 50% of grocery shopping decisions) who consume meat products; a set of screener questions, including basic demographics, will ensure the appropriate respondents are completing the survey to preserve the integrity of the collected data. The survey respondents will then be guided through a series of questions beginning with general topics of food shopping behaviors, meat preferences, and important characteristics of meat products that aid in decisions to purchase. Next, a discrete choice experiment embedded in the survey will be introduced to participants. Explanations will be provided to help participants learn how to complete the choice experiment questions effectively and will be followed by a sample choice task to ensure knowledge transfer. The aim of the choice experiment is to assess consumer preferences for CCM products and associated meat characteristics. Respondents will be randomized into seven groups - one control group and six treatment groups that are formed based on results from focus groups: (1) control; (2) social benefit treatment; (3) ethical benefit treatment; (4) health benefit treatment; (5) environmental benefit treatment; (6) legal framework treatment; and (7) cultural benefit treatment. The control group will be used as a baseline for comparison, where respondents in the group will be presented with the choice experiment tasks directly. For the remaining six treatment groups, there will be an intervention applied prior to proceeding with the choice experiment. These interventions will be in the form of informational messaging that educates consumers on consideration factors specifically related to the corresponding random group. During the choice experiment, respondents will be presented with a series of choice tasks designed to maximize the efficiency of preference elicitation. The preferences and willingness to pay for CCM products by consumers in the 'health' treatment group will then be compared to the baseline control group and treatment groups associated with the remaining consideration factors. After the choice experiment, consumers will be asked a set of questions pertaining to their treatment group. Thus, the 'health' treatment group will be asked questions about health factors. Additionally, another set of questions will assess the perception of CCM and its proximity to consumer consumption in the food supply chain. The final part of the survey will conclude with a set of questions related to the respondent's sociodemographic characteristics.Specific Objective #2: Determine the effects of information messaging, related to consideration factors about cell-cultured meats, on consumer perceptions and attitudes.Experimental Design and Techniques:Subjects will be recruited from the Gainesville, FL area to participate in this study. They will be randomly and equally split across a control and six treatment conditions. Qualifying subjects will be adult consumers (18 years or older) who are primary shoppers in their household (responsible for at least 50% of grocery shopping decisions). The experimental study will be carried out over two main stages. In the first stage, subjects will receive the marketing information messages, which will differ across treatments. Subjects in the control group will not receive any information messages, and this group will be used as a benchmark when measuring the average treatment effects (more details in the data analysis subsection). Unlike subjects in the control, those in the treatment conditions will receive marketing information messages based on the treatment they are in. In the social frame treatment, the marketing information will highlight the potential benefits of cultured meats in addressing issues related to food security and food accessibility. The information in the ethical frame treatment will highlight potential improvements in animal welfare afforded by cultured meat technology. The health frame treatment will focus on how cultured meat could improve food safety and other health concerns related to meat consumption. The environmental frame treatment will emphasize the potential benefits of cultured meat to the sustainability of the food system. The legal frame will stress how cultured meat could help resolve legal issues surrounding meat production practices and labeling. Finally, the cultural frame will underscore the benefits of food flexibility, where cultured meat could help certain ethnic groups to overcome cultural/religious restrictions in their diets.The second stage of the experiment will be identical for the control and all six treatments and will be used to measure subjects' behavioral and psychophysiological indicators of preferences for cultured meat vs. a conventional meat alternative. In this stage, subjects will complete a contingent valuation method (CVM) task. The CVM relies on direct measurement of preferences by asking subjects to indicate the maximum value they would be willing to pay to purchase a certain product (Bishop and Heberlein 2019). Beef will be the meat product used in this study due to its prevalence and high demand in the U.S. market (Martinez, Maples, and Benavidez 2021). Each subject will complete two rounds of the CVM, one round to elicit their willingness to pay (WTP) for cultured beef and the other round to elicit WTP for an equivalent but conventional beef alternative. Each CVM round will be designed such that the product image is displayed on the screen first (image of the cultured beef product in the first round and image of the conventional beef product in the second round), followed by another screen where subjects input their WTP for the product.