While global demand for meat keeps rising, the scientific literature argues that this demand is largely unsustainable. Today’s meat production not only produces huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, but also consumes extensive natural resources like land and water, threatens biodiversity and food security, harms animal welfare, and contributes to zoonotic disease transmission, among other concerns.

To limit these impacts, the consumption of plant-based and cultured meat products is seen as a positive step towards sustainability without compromising on what consumers are used to eating. However, to achieve this shift, it’s crucial to understand consumer perceptions and preferences, especially in places like China and Japan, two of the largest meat substitute markets in the world.

Within these markets, young consumers in particular haven’t received sufficient attention. Yet, they’re a key demographic: they tend to favor more sustainable consumption than previous generations, and they’re expected to become a dominant force in the market in the next decade. This study thus explores the perceptions and preferences of young Chinese and Japanese consumers towards meat alternatives.

Using an online survey, the researchers carried out a discrete choice experiment with a total of 2,006 participants aged 18 to 25 years (887 from Japan and 1,119 from China). For the experiment, participants were presented with two burger options and asked to choose one (or none). Burgers were used because of their popularity and similarity between the two countries. Each burger option had five different attributes for participants to consider:

• Patty: made from conventional meat, plant-based meat, or cultured meat
• Price: four different prices based on real market values
• Antibiotic label: antibiotic-free or no claim about antibiotics
• Traceability label: traceable or not traceable
• Carbon footprint label: four different carbon footprints based on previous estimates in the literature

Participants received random combinations of each attribute. Some were also provided with health information before being asked to choose a burger (the treatment group). This information explained why antibiotic use in conventional meat production is a threat to human health and how meat alternatives are completely antibiotic-free. Those who didn’t receive the health information served as the control group.

The survey also gathered data on sociodemographics, dietary preferences, experience and intentions around eating meat alternatives, and knowledge and perceptions of meat alternatives. Lastly, there was an open-ended question asking participants for words or sentences that first came to mind when thinking about meat alternatives.

Meat Alternatives Are More Popular In China Than Japan

Chinese respondents had much more experience with meat alternatives, with 65% having already tried them compared to only 32% of Japanese respondents. And whether they’d tried them before or not, more Chinese respondents (79%) than Japanese respondents (54%) wanted to eat them in the future. This is especially interesting in light of the fact that most respondents considered themselves omnivores (88% in China and 87% in Japan).

Further, compared to Japanese respondents, Chinese respondents had a greater understanding of what plant-based meats are made of (78% versus 57%) and how cultured meat is manufactured (27% versus 18%). The low awareness around cultured meat was expected, however, as these products weren’t yet commercially available in either country at the time of the survey.

Young Consumers Choose Meat Alternatives As Much As Conventional Meat

Overall, respondents from both countries perceived meat alternatives as substitutes with their own characteristics — like health and environmental benefits — rather than as a supplement to conventional meat, and the control group showed no significant preference between plant-based and conventional meats.

Preference For Different Meat Alternatives Is Mixed

Japanese respondents in the control group preferred cultured meat to conventional meat, which the authors attribute to concerns about animal welfare and food security. Chinese respondents in the control group showed no preference for cultured meat.

Interestingly, in the free association exercise, Japanese respondents mentioned insects as a meat alternative, while Chinese respondents didn’t. Because edible insect products are widely available in both countries, the authors suggest that Chinese consumers see them as protein supplements rather than meat substitutes, which may account for why they didn’t make the association here.

Health Information About Meat Alternatives Can Backfire

The treatment group unexpectedly showed a smaller willingness to pay for the plant-based burger option. Although the health information was focused on antibiotic use, the authors argue that the intervention may have drawn attention to the health controversies around meat alternatives more broadly (e.g., their level of processing), influencing respondents to view them less favorably.

Labels Are Appealing To Young Consumers In Both Countries

Overall, respondents showed significantly higher willingness to pay for products with antibiotic-free, traceable, and low carbon footprint labelling.

In the free association exercise, Chinese respondents linked meat alternatives with both health and environmental benefits, while Japanese respondents considered these to be two distinct characteristics. And in the discrete choice experiment, Japanese respondents in the treatment group were much less willing to pay for low carbon footprint labelling. In the authors’ view, these findings indicate that young Japanese consumers make trade-offs between health and the environment when choosing what to purchase.

Limitations

The authors emphasized several limitations of their research:

• The discrete choice experiment was based on hypothetical choices, not real products, and may therefore not reflect real-world decisions.
• The study focused on burgers, but consumers may have different perceptions of other types of products.
• The health information intervention only addressed antibiotics, but in a real marketing environment, consumers would be faced with many different types of information (e.g., environmental or nutritional claims), which may influence their choices in complex and unexpected ways.

Takeaways For Advocates

Understanding how young Chinese and Japanese consumers view meat alternatives is important in shaping a market that has the potential to drastically decrease the consumption of meat. This study highlights some key results that could inform effective marketing messages. First, antibiotic-free, traceable, and low carbon footprint labels could be very appealing to young consumers in these countries. Second, the gaps in knowledge around meat alternatives mean that educational interventions could be impactful, especially for dispelling health misconceptions. However, given how the health information unexpectedly backfired in this study, it may be best to design multidimensional messages to compensate for triggering certain negative consumer perceptions.