Consumer Acceptance of Cultured Meat: An Updated Review (2018–2020)

Consumer Acceptance of Cultured Meat: An Updated Review seems to be highly significant due to the described product of the future and the previous review of these authors from the 2018 year is very popular. However, the review is very extensive, too much extensive. I propose to move table 2 to the supplementary files. Moreover, the authors did not avoid repetitions from previous review papers. If the information was previous showed, authors should present in the present review information which only extends a particular section/subsection section. Moreover, throughout the manuscript some information were few times repeated, so authors should avoid this situation. 

Thank you for your review and for your kind words. We agree that the review is rather long, though it has been shortened somewhat by reformatting in the review stage.

We have included a brief summary of what previous research told us about each point discussed in the manuscript at the start of each section, though little space is given to discussing old studies in detail except where they are uniquely relevant.

There have been extensive edits and modifications; we invite any comments on specific repeated points to be removed.

Because I personally focus on rather biological studies not based on the surveys, for me in this review is lack of information ( one small section), about: what is this the cultured meat, what value ingredients could provide, why is not so delicious (indicating the fat, protein content and other important nutrients).

Thank you, you are correct that this is unknown to most people. We have added a paragraph to explain cultured meat (Lines 50 – 56)

The problem price of cultured meat -  some authors suggest that would be low and some that it will be high. In the literature is the information which is the true cost of 1kg of cultured meat production? and it should be compared with the other animal type of meat, to show the economic advantage of this production, of course, the others not economical were indicated in this review paper.

We have added some information about the current cost of cultured meat production to this section (Lines 857 – 861). These estimates are somewhat speculative currently and subject to change, so a detailed comparison to different forms of conventional meat may not be useful.

In additional it is interesting how this cultured meat is advertised, besides scientific papers and discussions in the social media. Is this review paper is a part of some scientific project or support them?

This paper is part of Christopher Bryant’s PhD project on consumer acceptance of cultured meat at the University of Bath.

Comment

Response

The abstract is well written as mentions the key point of this review. A better concluding statement at the end of the abstract can be added to integrate all the concepts that were studied.

Thank you, we have adapted the abstract to give more details of the conclusions we can draw from the literature overall.

Lines 44-55: It would be useful for the context of this review to mention the years' range of those 14 studies that were published by Byrant & Barnett (2018). This can answer the question of when did the first cultured meat studies started to appear as well.

We have added this (Line 75)

Table 2: Is there any criterion to list those studies in that particular order? It would be useful to arrange the order of those study either by the method that it was used, date, or the category of research (acceptance, perceive benefits, main drawbacks).

Originally, the studies were listed alphabetically based on author name, but we have taken your suggestion to list them first by method, then alphabetically within methods.

4.3 Comparisons to other alternative proteins and food technologies: This section compares the benefits and drawbacks of cultured meat with other meat substitutes alternatives such as insects, and plant-based foods. Although perceive healthiness and naturalness are essential factors in the mind of consumers, it would be interesting to cover the price factor as well. This might or might not have been explored in the previous studies, but it is still a factor to consider in the purchase decision of consumers.

We thank the reviewer for this suggestion, and we have added a paragraph discussing this issue (Lines 260-264).

Line 261: There is a typo (double dots) in this sentence.

Thank you, we have corrected this.

7.2 Sensory experience: Taste, juiciness and tenderness are key sensory parameters in the evaluation of meat. It would be useful to add a brief description (if the research exists) about how consumer expects this meat to be in relation to those key sensory parameters.

We thank the reviewer for this suggestion, and we have added a paragraph discussing this issue (Lines 755-759).

Comment

Response

Title: I suggest to change the title in Consumer Acceptance of Cultured Meat: An Updated Review (2018- 2020)

Thank you, we have taken your suggestion to include the years in the revised title.

L259-268 Please rewrite this paragraph. It is not clear

We have re-written this paragraph to clarify.

L632-675 In my opinion, the discussion section could be avoided in a review. Please include the discussion in the previous sections as well as the conclusion section. Delete the Discussion section

Our objective here was to keep the main section reviewing findings objective, and save commentary on the implications of findings for one discussion section. We prefer to leave the analysis of the findings to one single section rather than put this more speculative content throughout the manuscript.

L676-724 Please highlight the new findings found in recent papers in comparison to your 2018 review. 

Each section begins with a summary of what we knew from our previous review (including some pre-2018 citations from the previous review), before discussing what is new in the section. Hopefully it is now clear that old findings are mentioned in introducing the area, whereas new findings are discussed in more depth.

Please check double dots throughout the manuscript

Thank you, we have removed several instances of “..” typos

Please check the references format according to Journal requirements.

Thank you, we have corrected the reference format, which has also reduced the length of this rather long manuscript!

English language could be improved in the manuscript. Please revise

We have revised wording in some sections, and we are open to changing any specific instances where English language is an issue