People prefer meat alternatives if they are significantly cheaper than real meat, study shows

Only a few people fundamentally oppose eating plant-based meat alternatives, a recent survey of 2,100 customers in the U.S. shows. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was conducted by marketing researchers from the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), Humboldt University Berlin and Georg August University Göttingen.

According to the results, the price of meat alternatives is the most decisive factor for their acceptance, while similarity to meat did not matter that much. Although, when both options were priced the same, respondents often favored the animal product.

The high level of global meat consumption, particularly in affluent countries, is a controversial topic. “Even though the supply of plant-based alternatives has been growing for years, the demand for meat persists. Unfortunately, there is very little reliable data on the general acceptance of meat alternatives, what conditions are required to make them more attractive, and whether or not they are just a fad,” says economist Steffen Jahn, interim professor at the Chair of Marketing & Innovation at MLU.

The researcher teamed up with scientists from Humboldt University Berlin and Georg August University Göttingen to study consumer preferences relating to meat and meat substitutes. About 2,100 Americans were surveyed online. “The United States is a country with one of the highest rates of meat consumption in the world. For example, around 25 kilograms of beef was consumed per capita alone in 2023,” says Jahn.

In the first part of the study, participants were asked to choose one of four burger alternatives. These were accompanied by pictures and written descriptions: a real beef burger, a plant-based burger that imitated meat (analog), a vegetarian burger that only imitated the appearance but not the taste or texture of meat (semi-analog), and a falafel burger (non-analog). Unsurprisingly, three quarters of the respondents chose the meat burger.

“However, we did not expect to find that the falafel burger was the most popular meat alternative, while the analog burger came in last place. This contradicts the widespread assumption that meat substitutes are only competitive if they are as close as possible to the original,” explains Jahn. The data also show that the majority of consumers would opt for a meat alternative if no meat burger was on offer. Only a third would refuse to eat plant-based alternatives altogether.

A subsequent experiment analyzed how price influenced the respondent’s preferences. “Meat alternatives are currently more expensive than meat, which is why there are discussions about adjusting the prices into alignment. However, we found that price parity has no real effect on people’s choices,” explains Jahn.

Only when meat substitutes were significantly less expensive than their animal counterparts, did the researchers find a noticeable change in consumer behavior. Lowering the price of the analog burger by 10%, for example, led to an expected 14% increase in sales. If the alternatives were about half of the price of the meat burger, the number of people opting for a plant-based alternative would double.

Interestingly, even though men are the more dedicated meat eaters, the survey found that an attractive price makes them more willing than women to change their behavior. Even those who had never tried a meat substitute before would opt for it, if they could benefit from a proper price advantage.

“Restaurants and food manufacturers might actually be able to increase their sales of vegetarian or vegan alternatives if they offered meat substitutes at lower prices than the meat options. A truly faithful imitation is not the goal here, our study suggests. Maybe it’s because many people associate them with ultra-processed foods, which have a bad reputation,” says Jahn.

Based on their findings, the authors of the study also recommend offering the widest possible range of alternative products in order to appeal to different consumer groups.