GW4 Sustainable Food Consumption Research Community
University of Bath: Yixian Sun
University of Bristol: Jessica Paddock
Cardiff University: Pan He (PI), Wouter Poortinga
University of Exeter: Natalia Lawrence
Background
The inadequacy of diets is a major contributor to key global challenges such as climate change and health risks, largely due to prevalent excessive intakes of red and processed meat as a major protein source. In stepping into a net zero and more sustainable future, consumer behavioural change towards affordable and nutritious protein foods with minimum environmental impacts is urgently needed.
Studies are emerging investigating consumer preference for alternative protein foods with lower environmental impacts and high nutrition as well as how food labelling can influence people’s food choices. However, much remains unknown about consumer preference for environmental and nutritional attributes of protein foods along with other attributes in various dietary contexts. It is also unclear whether and how consumer preference varies across socio-economic status and culture, particularly in developing countries where a critical increase in meat consumption is witnessed.
Project Summary
The community used the Generator Fund to conduct a pilot study in the UK using a questionnaire to survey over 4000 individuals in order to:
- Investigate how people value environmental and nutritional characteristics of protein foods (including red meat, chicken, fish, cell-cultured meat, and plant-based meat alternatives) along with other attributes such as taste, convenience, familiarity, food safety, etc. in various food environments (e.g. home cooking recipes vs. eating out),
- Investigate how consumer preferences and choices are differentiated across socio-economic groups,
The data from this survey will allow the community to inform policy-making which could facilitate shifts towards healthier and more sustainable diets, by identifying opportunities to remove the barriers to sustainable dietary transitions. It also situates consumer preference among various attributes of protein foods and facilitates innovation of sustainable food production, labelling, and advertisement for the food industry and catering services. The community continue to collaborate, and are exploring how the questionnaire could be adapted to other cultures for comparison.
