Are All Cultured Foods Created Equal? Exploring Consumer Reactions to Sustainable Alternatives for Climate-Friendly Diets.

Abstract

The devastating environmental impact of traditional agricultural practices has ignited interest in cellular agriculture-a novel method of sampling cells from living source organisms and cultivating them in a controlled laboratory environment to produce a food product. Although research and development of cultured foods is rapidly increasing, little is known about consumers' perceptions of cultured foods beyond an exemplar product-cultured meat. This study provides a first gauge of consumers' perceptions and categorization of cultured-food products from different cell sources, and a comparative assessment of the psychological barriers to their acceptance. In a representative sample of N = 302 UK-based adults, the study explores the implicit categorization and acceptance of 16 cultured food products, including cultured plants (e.g., cacao), cultured non-flesh animal-sourced foods (e.g., milk), cultured aquatic animal-flesh (e.g., fish), and cultured terrestrial animal-flesh (e.g., beef). Results revealed that consumers implicitly categorize cultured foods into two broad groups: (1) cultured meat and (2) cultured non-meat. The study demonstrated that common acceptance barriers associated with cultured meat-disgust and perceived unnaturalness-were substantially more pronounced for cultured meat products than for cultured non-meat products. While experiencing disgust toward both cultured meat and non-meat foods was strongly associated with reduced willingness to try these foods, perceived unnaturalness was only weakly associated with willingness to try cultured food products. Study findings suggest that consumers do not perceive all cultured food products as equal, highlighting a timely opportunity for scholars to examine the distinct factors motivating sustainability through cultured-food acceptance.