Millennials' Consumption of and Attitudes toward Meat and Plant-Based Meat Alternatives by Consumer Segment in Finland

Abstract

Millennials are considered the key generation with regard to the consumption of plant-based meat alternatives via flexitarianism. This study sought to characterize millennials' consumer segments based on their consumption of and attitudes toward meat and meat alternatives. We conducted an online survey on the hedonic tones of the associations evoked by meat and meat alternatives, consumption of such foods, and diet-related attitudes among a representative sample of Finnish millennials (N = 546, 59% women, age 20-39 years). Some 41% of respondents regularly ate plant-based meat alternatives, while 43% had tried such foods. We divided the respondents into six segments based on the hedonic tones of their meat vs. meat alternatives associations. The segments differed in terms of their consumption of meat alternatives and the underlying reasons why, importance of meat in meals, and Meat Commitment Scale scores. The segment that reported much more positive associations with meat than meat alternatives (~14% of the respondents) may prove resistant to interventions intended to reduce meat intake, whereas the segment that displayed the most positive attitudes toward meat alternatives (~18%) did not eat much meat. Thus, the four middle segments (totaling ~68%), whose associations' hedonic tones were close to each other, may be the best targets for future interventions designed to reduce meat consumption through the use of meat alternatives. To conclude, introducing a simple segmentation allowed us to identify consumer segments with large potential to reduce meat consumption.

Keywords: acceptance; consumer segmentation; flexitarian; meat analogue; meat substitute; online survey; plant-based protein; sustainability; vegan; vegetarian.

Figure 1

Cross-tabulation of the hedonic tones (valence, on a scale from −5 to 5) of the first associations evoked by meat and plant-based meat alternatives and classifying the respondents into six consumer segments (marked with different colors). The numbers in the cells denote the counts of individual respondents who gave the respective combination of responses. Counts ≥10 are marked in bold to highlight the clustering (total N = 546 individuals).

Figure 2

Use frequencies of (a) meat (pork, poultry, beef, ham, sausages, etc.) and (b) plant-based meat alternatives (including vegetarian patties, soy, tofu, etc.) by gender and consumer segment. The number of individuals in a group is given in parentheses. For details concerning how the respondents were classified into segments, see Figure 1 and Table 5.

Figure 2

Use frequencies of (a) meat (pork, poultry, beef, ham, sausages, etc.) and (b) plant-based meat alternatives (including vegetarian patties, soy, tofu, etc.) by gender and consumer segment. The number of individuals in a group is given in parentheses. For details concerning how the respondents were classified into segments, see Figure 1 and Table 5.

Figure 3

Cross-tabulation of the consumption frequencies of meat (pork, poultry, beef, ham, sausages, etc.) in columns and plant-based meat alternatives (including vegetarian patties, soy, tofu, etc.) in rows. The percentages in the cells denote the proportion of respondents who responded with the combination represented by that cell (out of the total N = 546 respondents). Among all the respondents, 31.0% (red cells) consumed only meat, 20.4% (green cells) consumed only meat alternatives, and 48.6% (blue cells) consumed both meat and meat alternatives.