Van Loo, Ellen J. (author / Wageningen University), Caputo, Vincenzina (author / Michigan State University), and Lusk, Jayson L. (author / Purdue University)
Format:
Research report
Publication Date:
2019
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 85 Document Number: D10851
Via live link within an online article, "Consumers prefer real beef over other alternatives" by Greg Henderson. 37 pages., Results of a nationwide survey of more than 1,800 consumers who completed a choice experiment in which they selected among conventional beef and three alternative meat products at different prices. "Overall, this study shows most consumers strongly prefer conventional beef to the alternatives."
This paper examines the media coverage of the 2013 London cultured meat tasting event, particularly in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Using major news outlets, prominent magazines covering food and science issues, and advocacy websites concerning meat consumption, the paper characterizes the overall emphases of the coverage, the tenor of the coverage, and compares the media portrayal of the important issues to the demographic and psychological realities of the actual consumer market into which cultured meat will compete. In particular, the paper argues that Western media gives a distorted picture of what obstacles are in the path of cultured meat acceptance, especially by overemphasizing and overrepresenting the importance of the reception of cultured meat among vegetarians. Promoters of cultured meat should recognize the skewed impression that this media coverage provides and pay attention to the demographic data that suggests strict vegetarians are a demographically negligible group. Resources for promoting cultured meat should focus on the empirical demographics of the consumer market and the empirical psychology of mainstream consumers.
