Studies & Numbers

Study: American Consumers Prefer Falafel Burgers Over More Processed Meat Alternatives

A new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has examined the attitudes of US consumers towards different types of meat alternatives.

As part of the study, researchers from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), Humboldt University Berlin, and Georg August University Göttingen surveyed 2,100 US consumers. Participants were asked to choose one of four burgers — a conventional beef burger, a realistic plant-based meat burger (analog), a vegetarian burger imitating the appearance but not the taste or texture of meat (semi-analog), and a falafel burger (non-analog).

As expected, the meat burger proved the most popular and was chosen by three-quarters of respondents. However, researchers were surprised to find that the non-analog burger was the most popular meat-free choice, while the analog burger was the least popular. Furthermore, two-thirds of consumers were willing to choose a meat alternative when no meat burger was on offer.

“This contradicts the widespread assumption that meat substitutes are only competitive if they are as close as possible to the original,” said economist Steffen Jahn, Interim Professor of Marketing & Innovation at MLU.

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Reducing prices boosts plant-based sales

The study also examined the effect of price on consumer preferences. It found that price parity made minimal difference, but making plant-based options cheaper than meat had a significant impact. For example, when meat alternatives were half the price of conventional meat, twice as many people chose them. Interestingly, men were more likely than women to choose plant-based options that were attractively priced, despite the fact that men are usually more reluctant to give up meat.

The results are supported by data from Austrian supermarket chain BILLA, which found that plant-based product sales increased by 33% after prices were reduced to be the same as or lower than their animal-based counterparts. However, this may not hold true across all alternative protein categories — a study conducted last year as part of an EU-funded project found that consumers were less likely to buy fermented plant-based foods priced lower than their animal-based counterparts. This was probably because participants assumed the price reduction reflected lower quality.

“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,” said Jahn. “A truly faithful imitation is not the goal here, our study suggests. Maybe it’s because many people associate [meat analgos] with ultra-processed foods, which have a bad reputation.”

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