Consumer preferences for meathybrids - Empirical ﬁndings from Belgium

: High levels of meat consumption are increasingly being criticised for ethical, environmental, 1 and social reasons. Plant-based meat substitutes have been identiﬁed as healthy sources of protein in 2 comparison to meat. This alternative offers several social, environmental and health beneﬁts and may 3 play a role in reducing meat consumption. However, there has been a lack of research on how speciﬁc 4 meat substitute attributes can inﬂuence consumers to replace or partially replace meat in their diets. 5 Research demonstrates that in many countries consumers are highly attached to meat.They consider 6 it as an essential and integral element of their daily diet. For these consumers which are not interested 7 in vegan or vegetarian alternatives to meat, so-called meathybrids could be a low-threshold option 8 for a more sustainable food consumption behaviour. In meathybrids only a fraction of the meat 9 product (e.g. 20% to 50%) is replaced with plant-based proteins. In this paper, the results of an online 10 survey with 501 Belgium consumers are presented with focus on preferences and attitudes relating 11 to meathyrids. The results show that more than ﬁfty percent of consumers substitute meat at least 12 occasionally. Thus, about half of the respondents reveal an eligible consumption behaviour in respect 13 to sustainability and healthiness to a certain degree. Concerning the determinants of choosing either 14 meathybrid or meat it becomes evident that a strong effect is exerted by the health perception. The 15 healthier meathybrids are perceived, the higher is the choice probability. Thus, this egoistic motive 16 seems to outperform altruistic motives like animal welfare or environmental concerns when it comes 17 to choice for this new product category. 18

consumer demand and preferences into the development process, more suitable hybrid products can 48 be designed. Understanding the decision-making process will help to develop tailored communication 49 messages that highlight its benefits as a sustainable and healthy alternative to regular meat products. 50 For identifying consumer preferences and attitudes for meat alternatives as e.g. "meathybrids" a 51 representative online-survey was carried out in Belgium. Furthermore, a concise literature research 52 was conducted. It is to highlight, that many consumers consider meat products as an important source of nutrients 90 and a traditional component of their diet. It is generally perceived as a healthy food [20]. In the latter 91 study a quarter of the respondents believed that eating vegetarian food frequently is unhealthy. Like in 92 the study of De Backer and Hudders [19] omnivores associated meat with good health and disagreed 93 that meat production is bad for the environment. Perceived healthiness has been a positive predictor 94 of red meat consumption. Furthermore, among omnivores and flexitarians that represent a potential 95 target group for meathybrids there are large consumer segments that consider meat substitutes as 96 unhealthy and artificial. Thus in the communication strategy for meat substitutes the mentioned 97 prejudice must be dealt with and re-framed. Recent findings have reinforced the idea that consumers have an affective connection towards 100 meat that may play a role in their willingness to change consumption habits [12]. More specifically, it 101 has been suggested that the affective connection towards meat may be a continuum in which one end 102 refers to disgust (i.e., negative affect and repulsion, related with moral internalization), while the other 103 shows a pattern of attachment (i.e., high positive affect and dependence towards meat, and feelings 104 of sadness and deprivation when considering abstaining from meat consumption) that may hinder a 105 change in consumption habits [12]. This pattern mirrors the main characteristic of the general concept 106 of attachment, which is the presence of a positive bond and desire to maintain closeness to the object 107 of attachment. However, the role that meat plays beyond nutrition has only recently started to receive 108 attention, and the merit of meat attachment as a construct and measure to help increasing knowledge 109 on the psychology of meat consumption and meat substitution is yet to be determined. In response to 110 calls to expand knowledge on consumer willingness to reduce meat consumption and to adopt a more   Food neophobia refers to reluctance to eat unfamiliar foods. It has been the subject of many 117 studies over the last two decades in several countries, as it affects both the quality and variety of foods 118 in the diet. The ability to identify population segments that have greater or lesser neophobia, thus enabling identification of early adopters of innovative products.

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More elderly consumers more likely hold negative views towards in vitro meat. They saw in vitro not 121 as real meat, not as something natural, and hence unhealthy [14]. It is to hypothesise that possibly this 122 finding could hold for "meathybrids" that are partly highly processed as well. According to Apostolidis   The online survey was carried out in Belgium with 501 respondents. Participants had to be meat 133 eaters and thus vegetarians and vegans were sorted out. Furthermore, the participants had to be 134 mainly, respectively to 50% responsible for food shopping in the household 135 The study design and the practicability of the experiment were tested in a pretest with 20 participants.

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The pretest results led to slight changes in the questionnaire design. Data collection took place in the 137 time period from 8th November until 19th November 2019 (see Table 1).

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In the result section we report descriptive results. For scale development (FNS, MAQ) Cronbach's 139 alpha is calculated and reported. For measuring FNS the list of Pliner and Hobden[21] was selected.

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The wording of the German version has been chosen from a study by Siegrist and Hartmann[22].

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Participants answered on a five-point response scale that verbally and numerically anchored (1=totally 142 disagree, 2=disagree, 3=neither disagree nor agree, 4=agree, 5=totally agree). The five-point scale was 143 used instead of the originally used seven-point scale for a better display of the questionnaire on tablet 144 and smartphones. The items indicated with (r) in Table 4 were inversely re-coded. Considering that the 145 inclusion of invalid items creates the risk of invalid conclusions [23], a principal components analysis 146 (Varimax rotation, eigenvalues greater than one) was carried out to explain the variability of the FNS.

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The items indicated with (r) in Table 4 were inversely re-coded. Like for the FNS a principal component 150 analysis was carried out.

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Furthermore, a multinomial logistic regression model is applied for measuring the impact of several 152 parameters on the the choice of either a hybrid or a meat product. Multinomial logistic Regression is the regression analysis to conduct when the dependent variable is nominal with more than two levels. It is used to model nominal outcome variables, in which the log odds of the outcomes are modeled as a linear combination of the predictor variables. The multinomial logistic model belongs to the family of generalized linear models and as mentioned is used when the response variable is a categorical variable. Suppose that variable Y i represents the offered alternatives in a choice experiment (e.g. choice between meat and meathybrid), with i= 1,. . . , n and n is the number of possible product alternatives. In case n equals 2 and Y has outcomes Y 1 and Y 2 . Both the counts of Y 1 and Y 2 follow a binomial distribution. The probability of occurrence of Y 1 is π 1 and that of Y 2 is π 2 . Logistic regression relates probability π 1 to a set of predictors using the logit link function: where x is a vector of predictors (e.g. FNS, MAQ or buying frequency of organic meat), and β is a vector of model coefficients that are typically estimated by maximum likelihood. Equation 1 can be rewritten as: The quotient in Equation 2 is referred to as the odds. From Equation 2 follows that: The binomial logistic regression model is easily generalized to the multinomial case. If there are n product alternatives there are also n variables Y 1 ,. . . , Y n with corresponding probabilities of occurrence π 1 ,. . . , π n . Analogous to binomial logistic regression the odds π 1 /π n ,. . . , π n − 1/π n are modelled by means of exp(η 1 ),. . . , exp(η n−1 ). From ∑ n i=1 π i = 1 it follows that: where exp(η n )= 0. This model ensures that all probabilities are in the interval [0,1] and that the 155 probabilities sum to 1. In this paper the dependent variable is taken from a comparison task where

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Given the theoretical background, data was modelled according to the following expression: 163 x β =buy.freq. organic/free range * β 1 + healthier * β 2 + more tasty * β 3 + better for the environment * β 4 + better for animal welfare * β 5 The above mentioned parameters are estimated for meathybrid (Y 1 ) and the "none"-option (Y 2 ) whereas 164 meat (Y 3 ) was set as reference category in the estimation. In this study for estimating the specified  (see Figure 1).  Furthermore, respondents were asked for their buying frequency of organic respectively meat from 174 free-range production. About 18% of the participants indicated to buy such products often (15.2%) or 175 always (3.0%)(see Table 2).  Table 3). On average respondents agree to all of the statements. The highest means 181 received the statements the reverse-coded item "Meat reminds me of diseases" (3.70) and the statement 182 "I love meals with meat"(3.69). This evaluation demonstrates that most of the respondents consider 183 meat not as an unhealthy product but as an essential part of their diet.

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Subsequently, this group had to indicate with which products they concretely substitute meat.

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For this purpose they received a list of twelve products from that up to three products could be chosen.

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The option fish was selected by 66.7% of this segment, followed by eggs (58.8%), pasta (36.7%), cheese 196 (29.6%) and salad (16.7%) as most preferred substitutes (see Table 5). It is to highlight that the top 197 three on the list are non-vegan alternatives whereas vegan alternatives like protein-rich lentils, tofu, or 198 seitan were only of minor importance.

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Additionally, all respondents were asked how often they buy plant-based meat substitutes, such 200 as veggie burgers. Interestingly, only 4.4% indicated to consume such products frequently whereas 201 16.6% stated to do so at least sometimes (see Table 6). In order to analyse the preference for meathybrids in more detail respondents received a 204 comparison task. The question for this task was: "Consider a food product made of 100% meat   found.

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The MAQ-results reveal that the more meat attached the interviewees are, the higher is the probability 237 not to choose the hybrid option (-.394 * * * )(see Table 8). On the other hand the extent of food neophobia 238 exerts no significant effect on this alternative (.216). The same holds for the buying frequency of 239 organic respectively meat from free range production (-.016).

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If respondents evaluated the hybrid as healthier or better for the environment in the comparison task 241 the choice probability for this option increased significantly. In this context it is to highlight that the

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The results show that more than fifty percent of consumers substitute meat at least occasionally.

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Thus about half of the respondents reveal an eligible consumption behavior in respect to sustainability 251 and healthiness at least sometimes. Furthermore, about 20% indicated to consume sometimes animal welfare in comparison to meat whereas it is perceived as more expensive at the same time.

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Concerning the impact factors on choosing either a meathybrid or meat it becomes obvious that 258 the perception of meathybrids as more environment-friendly product positively influence the choice 259 decision. Likewise, a strong effect is exerted by the health perception. The healthier meathybrids 260 are perceived the higher is the choice probability. Thus this egoistic motive seems to outperform 261 altruistic motives when it comes to choice. In this line, it is to recommend to lay an emphasis on 262 healthy characteristics of meathybrids in product marketing for a successful market entry. These can 263 be used as unique selling proposition (USP) against competitors.

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With regard to consumer segments, it can be stated that there is no advantage in focusing on organic 265 buyers as a target group. Across all respondents the parameter buying frequency of organic or meat 266 from free range production had no impact on the choice of a meathybrid product.
Concerning the analysed scales, it can be stated that there is no problem with food neophobia when 268 it comes to meathyrids. Individual's degree of food neophobia exerts no effect on the choice of this 269 product category. Thus, it can be assumed that meathybrids are not perceived as 'exotic', 'neo' or 270 'artificial' as for example burgers based on insects or cultured meat where FNS is a big barrier.

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In contrast, the findings for the MAQ-scale show that the more consumers are attached to meat the 272 lower is the choice probability for choosing meathybrids. Thus for the segment of highly meat attached 273 consumer this alternative is no option. Obviously, meat attachment as a psychological construct 274 represents a barrier for diet change and transition. Future research should address this topic, and 275 analyse how to overcome this attitude.