Stakeholder Beliefs about Alternative Proteins: A Systematic Review

Abstract

In recent years, a great deal of research has been conducted on consumers’ attitudes and beliefs in favor and against alternative proteins (AP). By contrast, a much more limited research effort has been devoted to understanding stakeholders’ point of view. The current work provides a first systematic review of the existing literature on stakeholders’ beliefs towards alternative protein sources. Moreover, a secondary content analysis was carried out on the selected studies, providing an overview of the major themes emerging from the existing literature in relation to utilitarian, normative, and control beliefs that stakeholders hold towards AP. Results showed that stakeholders’ beliefs are very different from those that emerged from previous research on consumers’ views. Overall, stakeholders appear much more aware, compared to consumers, of the implications of using alternative proteins in relation to the main pillars of sustainability (economic, environmental, social). Stakeholders’ beliefs were grouped into 13 categories, such as “economics”, “consumers”, and “rules”. With respect to future scenarios, they attribute an important role to political institutions, with respect to both economic and communication aspects, which they consider crucial to overcome persistent consumer skepticism.

Vegetarian, vegan, or plant-based? Comparing how different labels influence consumer evaluations of plant-based foods

“…However, because the proportion of people in Germany eating plant-based appears to be increasing every year (8% vegetarian and 2% vegan; Bundesministerium for Ernährung und Landwirtschaft, 2023a), it is possible that average attitudes toward plant-based foods continue to grow more positive. Although a recent review of the English-language literature indicated that consumers were much less aware than market stakeholders of the environmental consequences of a shift toward alternative proteins (Amato et al, 2023) it is possible that this awareness gap is less pronounced in Germany for both environmental and animal ethics consequences. In 2023, the German federal government introduced a mandatory animal husbandry label, which tells consumers whether an animal has been raised in one of five different conditions: indoor housing; indoor + space; indoor with fresh air; outdoor runs/pasture; and organic (Bundesministerium for Ernährung und Landwirtschaft, 2023b).…”

Current Status and Economic Prospects of Alternative Protein Sources for the Food Industry

“…However, there is an increasing social awareness about food production, adequate nutrition, and environmental sustainability. The greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions associated to agriculture, forestry and other land uses have doubled in the last 50 years (Deprá et al, 2022;Shabir et al, 2023) [2,3], but the current resource-intensive food production model still does not provide adequate nutrition to around 3.37 billion people (Amato et al, 2023;Cucurachi et al, 2019; UN, 2023a) [4][5][6]. In addition, solid evidence has shown that high intake of animal protein is associated with higher risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and mortality (Hemler & Hu, 2019) [7].…”

“…Pressing issues about the sustainability of food production are expressed in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDG), which highlights concerns related to food security, clean water supply, responsible consumption, and production, among others (UN, 2023b) [9]. This scenario stimulates consumer interest for alternative protein (AP) sources as a way of providing sustainable, affordable, and nutritional options to replace or partially substitute for current mainstream food products (Amato et al, 2023;Bashi et al, 2019; Appl. Sci.…”

“…Sci. 2024, 14, 3733 2 of 15 Grossmann & Weiss, 2021) [4,10,11]. Also, a significant portion of the population is now more inclined to adopt vegetarian, flexitarian and vegan diets (Kent et al, 2022) [12].…”

“…This scenario stimulates consumer interest for alternative protein (AP) sources as a way of providing sustainable, affordable, and nutritional options to replace or partially substitute for current mainstream food products (Amato et al, 2023;Bashi et al, 2019;Grossmann & Weiss, 2021) [4,10,11]. Also, a significant portion of the population is now more inclined to adopt vegetarian, flexitarian and vegan diets (Kent et al, 2022) [12].…”