Willingness to pay for sustainably innovated animal products and plant-based alternative foods – A meta-analysis

Replacing animal-based foods in human diets with innovative alternatives can address concerns regarding health, environmental sustainability and animal welfare. However, whether consumers are willing to pay for such innovations remains unclear.

Here, we review 67 existing studies published between 2010 and 2025 in a systematic way and conduct a quantitative meta-analysis to assess how consumers value food innovations that intend to improve environmental sustainability, animal welfare or human health. We focus on animal-based foods and their innovative alternatives including products made from plants, insects, in laboratory settings or using genetic engineering technologies.

Our findings reveal that willingness to pay (WTP) estimates are highly heterogeneous, product- and context-specific. On average consumers are willing to pay more for innovative alternatives, when they improve animal welfare or environmental sustainability compared to their respective conventional animal products. In contrast, for plant-based options and foods developed in a laboratory or through genetic engineering, consumers require a discount to choose these alternatives over the conventional product.

The higher the level of innovativeness, the less consumers are willing to pay across products. Studies conducted in Europe still show a positive average WTP for the innovative foods, whereas studies from North America or Asia suggest that consumers discount innovative products compared to conventional foods.

Policymaking can leverage these insights to positively influence the perception of innovative products with targeted information treatments and consider subsidies where the WTP for the socially desirable alternative remains low.