The price penalty on meat substitutes - consumers prefer reduced meat portions over novel meat alternatives and authentic vegetarian dishes—final stage of a registered report

Abstract

Due to growing health and environmental problems related to the overconsumption of meat in western diets, we investigated consumer demand for dishes that reduce or replace beef with: (1) plant-based products that mimic the functionality and taste, (2) authentic plant-based ingredients that just mimic the functionality and (3) halved beef portion sizes. We implemented a peer-reviewed and pre-registered (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252675) conjoint experiment to elicit the WTP across three popular beef dishes and three reduction options each. The conjoint experiment includes the dish configuration, waiting-time, CO2-information, and an individually adapted price vector (IACBC), where the prices depend on previous choices. Consumers favoured the reduced portion sizes when faced with the meat reduction task. This reduction preference is even more prevalent among regular consumers of the meat dish, i.e. consumers with relevant consumption habits to reconsider. We discuss strategies to reformulate meat dishes that are particularly promising with the current bulk market and address regular meat eaters.