Tracking Social Media and News about Beef, Pork, Poultry, and Plant Based Meat Alternatives

Along with my colleagues at the Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability at Purdue, we’ve created a new data dashboard we’re calling #Meat, which shows volume and sentiment of social media (or traditional news media) about meat and meat alternatives over time and across the United States. The dashboard is based on criteria and procedures Nicole Widmar and colleagues outlined in an academic paper published in Meat Science earlier this year.

Here is a screenshot of social media sentiment and volume surrounding plant-based meat in 2022. Sentiment is most positive in California, Washington, Iowa, and Texas and most negative in Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, and Wisconsin. On a per-capita basis, volume of social media searches on plant-based meat are highest in Wyoming, Vermont, and Delaware.

Here is the same except for pork. Sentiment is uniformly positive across the U.S., but highest in Arkansas (perhaps due to the mascot of the large public University in the state?)

Play around with the data yourself! The data will be updated on a weekly basis.

Thanks to my colleagues Nicole Widmar, Jinho Jung, and Annapurni Subramaniam who helped create the dashboard.

Some new papers

I’ve been fortunate to have several papers accepted for publication in the past few days - one on meat demand, another on plant-based meat alternatives, and two papers on consumer research methods. Below is a summary of each, starting first with the research methods papers.

1) A Basket-Based Choice Experiment with Vincenzina Caputo in Food Policy. Here’s the abstract:

“Although economic research on food consumer demand has exploded in recent years, most survey demand elicitation approaches have substantial limitations for food policy evaluations as they involve consumers choosing only one item out of a bundle. There is a need to design a more flexible approach capturing more realistic consumption patterns. This study introduces such an approach – a basket-based choice experiment – where consumers select their preferred food item or combination thereof. Our basket-based choice experiment includes 21 food items that can be freely combined to construct over 2 million possible baskets. Our results show that when given the opportunity, consumers select multiple items for their basket, most commonly three or four items. A composite conditional likelihood function approach is used to reduce the computational burden associated with modeling the choice of over 2 million possible baskets, and estimates are utilized in a multivariate logit model to calculate the probability of bundle selection and individual food price elasticities. Unlike typical choice experiments utilizing multinomial logit model variants, which forces products to be demand substitutes, our basket-based approach is able to capture a rich set of substitution and complementary patterns, and we find that most of the 21 food items studied are demand complements. The BBCE is used to explore policy questions related to the impacts of changing prices on the healthfulness of consumer dietary choices and the welfare effects of product bans, such as Meatless Monday.”

2) A Calibrated Choice Experiment Method with Lauren Chenarides, Carola Grebitus, and Iryna Printezis in the European Review of Agricultural Economics. Here’s the abstract:

“Although choice experiments have emerged as the most popular stated preference method in applied economics, the method is not free from biases related to order and presentation effects. This paper introduces a new preference elicitation method referred to as a calibrated choice experiment, and we explore the ability of the new method to alleviate starting point bias. The new approach utilizes the distribution of preferences from a prior choice experiment to provide real-time feedback to respondents about our best guess of their willingness-to-pay for food attributes, and allows respondents to adjust and calibrate their values. The analysis utilizes data collected in 2017 in two U.S. cities, Phoenix and Detroit, on consumer preferences for local and organic tomatoes sold through supermarkets, urban farms, and farmers markets to establish a prior preference distribution. We re-conduct the survey in May 2020 and implement the calibrated choice experiment. Conventional analysis of the 2020 choice experiment data shows willingness-to-pay is strongly influenced by a starting point: the higher the initial price a respondent encountered, the higher the absolute value of their willingness-to-pay. Despite this bias, we show that when respondents have the opportunity to update their willingness-to-pay when presented with the best-guess, the resulting calibrated willingness-to-pay is much less influenced by the random starting point. ”

3) Benchmarking US Consumption and Perceptions of Beef and Plant-Based Proteins with Hannah Taylor, Glynn Tonsor, and Ted Schroeder in Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy. Here’s the abstract:

“This article uses two complementary analyses to document consumption of beef and plant-based proteins along with perceptions held by US consumers. Beef is chosen three times more often than plant-based proteins and consumers hold a positive image of beef overall. Key differences are outlined between regular meat consumers and those declaring alternative diets. Combined these findings extend understanding in the dynamic situation presented by plant-based proteins in the US market.”

4) U.S. perspective: Meat Demand Outdoes Meat Avoidance with Glynn Tonsor in Meat Science. Here’s the abstract:

“Despite ample discussion of health, environment, and animal welfare effects of meat production and consumption, this article documents past, current, and projected consumption patterns reflecting robust meat demand in the United States. There is some evidence of meat avoidance behavior among a segment of the population, including younger, higher educated, higher income consumers in the Western United States. At the same time, the majority of U.S. residents self-declare as regularly consuming products from animals, and there is evidence of strong demand growth for meat products in recent years. Key factors influencing protein purchasing decisions are presented revealing critical roles of taste, freshness, and safety. Combined this article summarizes both the aggregate and more refined, household-level situation underlying robust meat demand in the U.S.”

Market potential of new plant-based protein alternatives: Insights from four US consumer experiments

That’s the title of a new article, co-authored with Glynn Tonsor and Ted Schroeder, that was just released by the journal Applied Economic Perspectives & Policy.

Here’s the abstract:

“This article reports results from four studies determining the US market potential for plant-based meat alternatives in different contexts and settings. The first study shows that a pair-wise choice between beef and a plant-based alternative was not significantly affected by the presence of nutrition facts panels or ingredient lists. A second study, framed as a food service meal choice, reveals that the introduction of a plant-based burger has roughly the same effect on beef sales as does the presence of a chicken wrap. The final two studies estimate own- and cross-price elasticities of retail demand. We find small cross-price elasticities between plant-based patties and ground beef. Each of the aforementioned results varies for regular meat consumers as compared to consumers who self-identify with an alternative diet such as flexitarian, vegetarian, or vegan. Combined, this study increases understanding of the impact presented by plant-based offerings in the US protein market.”

A bit more detail from the conclusions …

“Regular meat consumers are much less likely than those declaring an alternative diet (vegan, vegetarian, flexitarian, or other) to select a plant-based item when a beef item is available. The median willingness to pay and market share differences are substantial and documented in this research. Characteristics of consumers most likely to select plant-based proteins include younger, those with children under the age of 12 years, having higher household income, residing in a Western state, and affiliating with the Democratic party. Replacing a chicken item with a new plant-based protein offering on a food service menu has a small (less than 3%) impact on the frequency of selecting beef burger meals. Changes in the price of beef and chicken have a much larger impact on consumer decisions to buy beef than the impact of changes in the price of plant-based offerings. This means plant-based burgers are relatively weak substitutes for beef. Plant-based burgers have more elastic demands than hamburger and chicken breast for regular meat eaters. This suggests regular meat eaters will be more responsive to adjusting consumption to plant-based proteins as their prices change.

A key question relates to the ultimate US market share of plant-based protein products. This research indicates that if facing a binary choice between a plant-based alternative and traditional beef, around 25% of consumers select a plant-based alternative. However, a few caveats are worth mentioning. Some of the individuals who choose the plant-based alternative are unlikely to consume much (if any) beef. In this sense, growth in the market share of plant-based alternatives is not entirely coming at the cost of reduced beef demand and indeed if a plant-based alternative simply replaces a substitute competitor (like a chicken sandwich) or reflects overall growth in protein demand, the impacts on beef demand are likely to be negligible. Nonetheless, the fact that roughly a quarter of consumers indicate they would choose a plant-based alternative suggests there is ample room for this market to grow relative to the current position of limited market share. That is, our estimates suggest we will likely continue to witness growth in the plant-based alternative market even if all that changes is increased availability (and prices remain fixed at the status quo and consumer preferences and beliefs remain unchanged). Strong growth rates could occur for plant-based items, yet a smaller market share resulting. In fact, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, this occurred as retail sales of plant-based items jumped, but so did many other protein items (Meatingplace, 2020). Accordingly, plant-based item retail market share declined despite the growth of overall sales—an observation that conveys caution on using market-share measures.”

Impact of plant-based meat alternatives on cattle inventories and greenhouse gas emissions

That’s the title of a new paper just published in Environmental Research Letters I co-authored with Dan Blaustein-Rejto, Saloni Shah, and Glynn Tonsor. Here’s the abstract.

“New plant-based meat (PBM) alternatives that aim to mimic the taste and texture of beef could have significant economic, environmental, and animal welfare impacts if they replace traditional animal-based meats and reduce livestock production. Whether PBM alternatives can achieve these ends depends on the extent to which consumers are willing to substitute for PBM alternatives, the structure of the meat industry, and the inter-linkages of the livestock industry with the other parts of the economy. We construct and calibrate an economic model to estimate how a reduction in PBM prices, or increase in demand for PBM, in the United States affects cattle production. For every 10% reduction in price or increase in demand for PBM, we estimate U.S. cattle production falls approximately 0.15%, U.S. cattle producers’ economic welfare falls by $300 million year per year, and U.S. consumer welfare rises by $513 million year per year. Key variables affecting model outcomes include the supply elasticity of cattle, the share of the total cost of cattle used to produce ground beef, and cross price-elasticity of demand between PBM and ground beef. Increases in U.S. demand for PBM alter trade patterns, leading to a reduction of beef imports and an increase in beef exports, a phenomenon that further reduces global greenhouse gas emissions and land use given the relative efficiency of U.S. beef production. For every 10% reduction in the price of PBM alternatives, we estimate that the global reduction in emissions is equivalent to 0.34% of U.S. emissions from beef production and 1.14% when including reduced land-use change emissions. Even substantial reductions in prices of PBM alternatives are unlikely to have substantive impacts on the U.S. cattle population and emissions, suggesting the need to also pursue alternative mitigation strategies, such as innovations to reduce the methane emissions per head.”

As indicated, the modeling results are partially driven by the relatively low cross-price elasticity of demand between plant-based meat alternatives and traditional meat that we have found in previous studies, mainly based on surveys. I just ran across this new paper in the Journal of Economic Perspectives and Policy by Shuoli Zhao, Lingxiao Wang, Wuyang Hu, and Yuqing Zheng that estimates these cross-price elasticities using grocery store scanner data based on actual purchase histories. They find, surprisingly, that plant-based and traditional meet are demand complements rather than substitutes. This would mean that a fall in plant base meat alternative prices would lead to an increase in the quantity of beef demanded! (note: the estimated effect is small - a 1% reduction in plant-based prices would lead to a 0.003% increase in beef demand). They find only chicken is a demand substitute for plant-based meat alternatives. Thus, the Zhao et al. paper re-enforces our finding that a reduction in plant-based meat alternative prices is likely to have very small impacts on U.S. cattle inventory - at least based on current preferences and current market structure.

You can read our new paper here.

New York Times Opinion Video

A recent opinion video from the New York Times entitled “Meet the People Getting Paid to Kill Our Planet” is making the rounds.

I don’t intend to respond to the the claims in the video in entirety (if you’re curious, my view resembles those of Aaron Smith at UC Davis). However, because I made a 2 second cameo in the video saying the word “cow tax,” I think it’s important to widen out that selective edit. Here’s the background commentary from the narrator in the video.

“It’s outrageous what the Big Ag lobby has gotten away with. Here are some big wigs. Any suggestion that methane should be regulated are quickly branded a “cow tax.” A catchy rallying cry that politicians and commentators compare it [insert video of several folks, including myself saying “cow tax”] that flips a smart green idea to something that sounds absurd and wont pass. That’s the Big Ag lobby in action. ”

If you’re curious to see my “cow tax” comment in wider context, the whole interview I gave with Steward Varney on Fox Business is available here. I’ll leave it to you to judge whether I gave the impression that greenhouse gas emissions are unimportant or that there aren’t actions we could take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from animal agriculture. Moreover, one can read, among other things, my post from March 2019 entitled “A Case for a Carbon Tax - Meat and Livestock Edition.” Here’s a broader discussion I provided summarizing my food policy research.

The New York Times video attempts to raise the alarm on some serious issues. If the film makers are really serious about engaging on these complex issues instead of trying to score cheap shots, I’m all ears.