The food industry continuously develops alternative proteins (APs) to mitigate environmental harm caused by traditional agricultural methods. However, consumers are reluctant to adopt these APs due to ingrained dietary habits and risk aversion to novel food. We developed a pull-push-mooring (PPM) model to investigate consumers’ preferences and switching intentions for plant-based meat (PBM), cultured meat (CM), and edible insects (EI).
We tested hypotheses using structural equation modelling (SEM) and multivariate analysis with online survey data (n = 530) recruited in Taiwan via a professional survey company. Consumers were classified by how many APs they were willing to accept/switch into four segments: none, one, two, and all three APs.
Findings show that the pull factors, particularly consumers’ nutritional knowledge, influence switching intentions more strongly than push factors. Meat aversion and the desire for dietary variety emerge as significant motivators for behavioral change in the high-frequency AP adoption cluster. The mooring factors, i.e. food technology and food neophobia, negatively impact switching intentions. This research found that the mooring factors stop the first consumer segment, the second segment struggles with the pushing factor, and the pull factors hinder the third group. The challenge for the fourth cluster is to enhance their frequencies when consuming APs.
This research segmented consumers into 4 clusters and found their different reluctances and tendencies to adopt each AP in line with the distinct PPM factors, and thus could develop separate marketing strategies accordingly.
