No meat, lab meat, or half meat? Dutch and Finnish consumers’ attitudes toward meat substitutes, cultured meat, and hybrid meat products

As a result of the ongoing climate crisis, there is a growing need to decrease meat consumption worldwide. This study sought to investigate Dutch and Finnish consumers’ attitudes toward plant-based meat substitutes, cultured meat, and hybrid meat products. It also aimed to determine how those attitudes relate to the consumers’ meat attachment, food neophobia, and food sustainability knowledge. An online survey was conducted among omnivore and flexitarian participants from the Netherlands (n = 126, 72% female, 62% flexitarian) and Finland (n = 250, 71% female, 52% flexitarian). The results showed that the omnivore participants tended to be more meat attached, score higher in terms of food neophobia, and exhibit less knowledge of food sustainability when compared with the participants with flexitarian diets. Furthermore, the results revealed that meat substitutes and hybrid meat products scored significantly higher regarding the participants’ overall attitude score than cultured meat, although the participants’ willingness to buy both hybrid meat products and cultured meat was significantly lower than their willingness to buy meat substitutes. The willingness to buy the three types of alternatives to meat was influenced by the country, diet, age, gender, familiarity, food sustainability knowledge, food neophobia, and meat attachment. Based on these results, it can be concluded that flexitarians represent an important target population for the promotion of meat alternatives and that hybrid meat products could be a viable option for reducing meat consumption if it is properly promoted.