The valency of consumers' perceptions toward cultured meat: A review

The prospects of developing a global market for cultured meat are arguably beginning to increase due to an increase in Scientific breakthroughs that are lowering the cost of production of cultured meat. This study aims to assess consumers' receptiveness to cultured meat by evaluating the valency of positive and negative perceptions toward cultured meat. It does this by reviewing the poll statistics of past studies that evaluated consumers' risk and benefit perceptions of cultured meat. The study's results indicated that consumers had a strong belief in the possible social, cultural and ethical benefits associated with cultured meat. The findings also showed that consumers' biggest concern was about its possible low quality. The regional analysis indicated that statistics from the North American countries showed very high positive perceptions about cultured meat while statistics from developing countries indicated the most reservations about the product. The results dispelled the belief that social and cultural issues would rank highest as hinderances to consumer acceptance in developing countries and highlighted differing motivators for acceptance in Eastern and Western Europe. The evidence-based knowledge reported in this paper is useful in giving insights of how a global cultured meat industry could be distributed and which perception areas would present the biggest challenges or drivers of consumer acceptance.