IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i15p11722-d1205916.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do Consumers Perceive Cultivated Meat as a Sustainable Substitute to Conventional Meat? Assessing the Facilitators and Inhibitors of Cultivated Meat Acceptance

Author

Listed:
  • Wei Fu

    (Division of Social Science, Maryville College, Maryville, TN 37804, USA)

  • Hongping Zhang

    (Department of Retail, Hospitality, and Tourism, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA)

  • Jeremy E. Whaley

    (Department of Retail, Hospitality, and Tourism, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA)

  • Youn-Kyung Kim

    (Department of Retail, Hospitality, and Tourism, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA)

Abstract

Conventional meat production has become a force of environmental damage, but global meat consumption is predicted to continue increasing. Therefore, the technology of cultivated meat is undergoing rapid development. The current study explores what factors explain U.S. consumers’ intention to purchase cultivated meat as a sustainable substitute for conventional meat by applying a dual-factor model. A total of 410 completed responses were received from a nationwide survey. Structural equation modeling was conducted to test the model and hypotheses. The results showed that physical health, animal welfare, and food quality significantly encouraged consumer acceptance of cultivated meat as a sustainable substitute for conventional meat. Food technology neophobia significantly inhibits the acceptance of cultivated meat, whereas unnaturalness did not show an impact on cultivated meat acceptance. Furthermore, the acceptance of cultivated meat as a sustainable substitute significantly enhanced consumers’ purchase intention. The findings inform practitioners about promoting cultivated meat in that marketers should emphasize the benefits of cultivated meat with health, animal welfare, food quality, and the environment. While technological language should be used carefully to avoid food technology neophobia, it is also essential to educate consumers on the science of cultivated meat in order for them to understand its benefits to sustainability.

Suggested Citation

  • Wei Fu & Hongping Zhang & Jeremy E. Whaley & Youn-Kyung Kim, 2023. "Do Consumers Perceive Cultivated Meat as a Sustainable Substitute to Conventional Meat? Assessing the Facilitators and Inhibitors of Cultivated Meat Acceptance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-16, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:15:p:11722-:d:1205916
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/15/11722/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/15/11722/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Punam A. Keller, 2006. "Regulatory Focus and Efficacy of Health Messages," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 33(1), pages 109-114, June.
    2. Rey-Moreno, Manuel & Medina-Molina, Cayetano, 2020. "Dual models and technological platforms for efficient management of water consumption," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    3. Hudson F Golino & Sacha Epskamp, 2017. "Exploratory graph analysis: A new approach for estimating the number of dimensions in psychological research," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(6), pages 1-26, June.
    4. John R. Macdonald & Christopher W. Zobel & Steven A. Melnyk & Stanley E. Griffis, 2018. "Supply chain risk and resilience: theory building through structured experiments and simulation," International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(12), pages 4337-4355, June.
    5. Rusitha Wijekoon & Mohamad Fazli Sabri, 2021. "Determinants That Influence Green Product Purchase Intention and Behavior: A Literature Review and Guiding Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-40, May.
    6. Shiksha Kushwah & Amandeep Dhir & Mahim Sagar & Bhumika Gupta, 2019. "Determinants of organic food consumption. A systematic literature review on motives and barriers," Post-Print hal-02559373, HAL.
    7. Roheim, Cathy A. & Zhang, Dengjun, 2018. "Sustainability certification and product substitutability: Evidence from the seafood market," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 92-100.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cheng, Junjun & Chen, Bo & Huang, Zihang, 2023. "Collective-based ad transparency in targeted hotel advertising: Consumers’ regulatory focus underlying the crowd safety effect," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    2. Magdalena Maciaszczyk & Artur Kwasek & Maria Kocot & Damian Kocot, 2022. "Determinants of Purchase Behavior of Young E-Consumers of Eco-Friendly Products to Further Sustainable Consumption Based on Evidence from Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-16, February.
    3. Matthias Klumpp & Dominic Loske, 2021. "Sustainability and Resilience Revisited: Impact of Information Technology Disruptions on Empirical Retail Logistics Efficiency," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-20, May.
    4. Zhang, Jason Q. & Craciun, Georgiana & Shin, Dongwoo, 2010. "When does electronic word-of-mouth matter? A study of consumer product reviews," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(12), pages 1336-1341, December.
    5. Luigi Leclercq-Machado & Aldo Alvarez-Risco & Romina Gómez-Prado & Berdy Briggitte Cuya-Velásquez & Sharon Esquerre-Botton & Flavio Morales-Ríos & Camila Almanza-Cruz & Sarahit Castillo-Benancio & Mar, 2022. "Sustainable Fashion and Consumption Patterns in Peru: An Environmental-Attitude-Intention-Behavior Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-18, August.
    6. Arun T. M. & Puneet Kaur & Alberto Ferraris & Amandeep Dhir, 2021. "What motivates the adoption of green restaurant products and services? A systematic review and future research agenda," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 2224-2240, May.
    7. Papanagnou, Christos & Seiler, Andreas & Spanaki, Konstantina & Papadopoulos, Thanos & Bourlakis, Michael, 2022. "Data-driven digital transformation for emergency situations: The case of the UK retail sector," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 250(C).
    8. Ximing Chen & Jie Shang & Muhammad Zada & Shagufta Zada & Xueqiang Ji & Heesup Han & Antonio Ariza-Montes & Jesús Ramírez-Sobrino, 2021. "Health Is Wealth: Study on Consumer Preferences and the Willingness to Pay for Ecological Agricultural Product Traceability Technology: Evidence from Jiangxi Province China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(22), pages 1-13, November.
    9. Dmitry Ivanov, 2022. "Viable supply chain model: integrating agility, resilience and sustainability perspectives—lessons from and thinking beyond the COVID-19 pandemic," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 319(1), pages 1411-1431, December.
    10. Franco Valdez, Ana Dolores & Valdez Cervantes, Alfonso & Motyka, Scott, 2018. "Beauty is truth: The effects of inflated product claims and website interactivity on evaluations of retailers' websites," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 67-74.
    11. Lukáš Copuš & Peter Madzík & Helena Šajgalíková & Karol Čarnogurský, 2023. "Is There a Possibility to Characterize an Organizational Culture by Its Selected Cultural Dimensions?," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, October.
    12. Rozhkov, Maxim & Ivanov, Dmitry & Blackhurst, Jennifer & Nair, Anand, 2022. "Adapting supply chain operations in anticipation of and during the COVID-19 pandemic," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    13. Hazem Ali & Min Li & Yunhong Hao, 2021. "Purchasing Behavior of Organic Food among Chinese University Students," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-17, May.
    14. Andrey Nasledov & Sergey Miroshnikov & Liubov Tkacheva & Kirill Miroshnik & Meriam Uld Semeta, 2021. "Application of Psychometric Approach for ASD Evaluation in Russian 3–4-Year-Olds," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(14), pages 1-21, July.
    15. Zhang, Dengjun & Xie, Yifan, 2022. "Customer environmental concerns and profit margin: Evidence from manufacturing firms," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    16. Jingfu Huang & Gaoke Wu & Yiju Wang, 2021. "Retailer’s Emergency Ordering Policy When Facing an Impending Supply Disruption," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-21, June.
    17. Tandon, Anushree & Dhir, Amandeep & Kaur, Puneet & Kushwah, Shiksha & Salo, Jari, 2020. "Why do people buy organic food? The moderating role of environmental concerns and trust," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    18. Naman Sreen & Swetarupa Chatterjee & Seema Bhardwaj & Asmita Chitnis, 2023. "Reasons and intuitions: extending behavioural reasoning theory to determine green purchase behavior," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 20(2), pages 447-475, June.
    19. Das, Gopal & Mukherjee, Amaradri & Smith, Ronn J., 2018. "The Perfect Fit: The Moderating Role of Selling Cues on Hedonic and Utilitarian Product Types," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 203-216.
    20. Carlson, Andrea & Greene, Catherine & Raszap Skorbiansky, Sharon & Hitaj, Claudia & Ha, Kim & Cavigelli, Michel & Ferrier, Peyton & McBride, William, 2023. "U.S. Organic Production, Markets, Consumers, and Policy, 2000-21," USDA Miscellaneous 333551, United States Department of Agriculture.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:15:p:11722-:d:1205916. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.