RESPOSTAS EMOCIONAIS E A INTENÇÃO DE COMER CARNES ALTERNATIVAS NO BRASIL

Abstract

The protein transition, which consists of reducing the intake of animal origin proteins and a greater intake of plant origin foods, has been identified as one of the main solutions to issues related to environmental preservation, animal welfare and food safety. These aspects are among the main justifications for the emerging and expressive development of alternative proteins that are analogous to meat, including cultivated and vegetable meats. In addition, on the demand side, there is a growing number of consumers who have chosen to moderately reduce their consumption of animal origin meat, the so-called flexitarians. However, there is still a lack of information about consumers' responses to these foods, especially regarding their emotional responses. It is in this area that this research is developed, which objective is to analyze the relation between emotional responses and the intention to consume plant-based meat and meat grown in a given consumption context. To this end, a multi-response survey was conducted with 1.016 Brazilian consumers, who answered questions related to emotions, perception of context appropriateness and familiarity with plant-based and cultured meat. The results revealed a strong relation between emotions and the intention to eat plant-based and cultured meat hamburgers, in which positive emotions act as important motivators of consumption and negative emotions as barriers, which are predictive of the intention to eat. On the one hand, among the participants with greater intention to eat alternative meats, there is a significant predominance of positive emotional associations, while on the other hand, among consumers less willing to the idea of consuming plant-based meat and cultured meat, associations with negative emotions prevail. This study confirms the importance of considering the context of consumption in food research, especially when trying to measure emotional responses, since an association was identified between the perception of appropriateness of the context and emotions. In addition, the perception of context adequacy also proved to be determinant for the intention to eat. The results showed that Brazilian consumers prefer vegetable meat to cultured meat, being more willing to consume it. These findings shed light on important information regarding motivations and barriers to acceptance of meat alternatives.