Consumer categorization of the emerging clean meat market

Abstract

One of the most significant causes of the growing climate change crisis and a major user of water, land, and energy resources is the conventional mass production of meat. Hence, more sustainable alternatives for meat production are being explored. Clean meat, or meat developed with stem cell technology, has been proposed as a possible solution due to its expected benefits for the environment, food availability and animal welfare. To successfully introduce this product to the market, it is vital that companies producing it are aware of respective consumer acceptance and what they can do to improve it.

Consequently, this study investigates how consumers categorize clean meat and how this can be influenced by clean meat companies. This is achieved by a three-stage triangulation method consisting of an online survey, news articles, and interviews with consumers and firms in the clean meat industry. The data is then analyzed thematically to discover general trends in consumer perceptions, the primary discourses and discursive legitimation strategies used by the media, and the categorization strategies used by consumers and companies. Three markets have been selected for the study: Finland, Germany, and the United States of America (US). The results show that consumers are interested in clean meat, and many will categorize it as sustainable and humane, but improving consumer education about the product could greatly enhance market introduction. To support this, six marketing strategies designed to increase consumer acceptance are presented in addition to a cognitive process model demonstrating how consumers form perceptions is introduced. This study improves knowledge about categorization strategies by using the clean meat phenomenon to understand how categorization strategy differs between external users, i.e. consumers, and internal users, i.e. firms.