Meat Reduction and The Psychology of the Willing Middle

Global meat consumption continues to rise despite efforts to encourage plant-based diets, with chicken increasing and red meat sales largely flat while total meat remains high. Many interventions have been tried, including plant-based products, pulses campaigns, new technologies, menu changes, sustainability labels, recipe innovation, and default plant-based options. Evidence shows that increasing availability of plant-based choices improves selection, and making options more visible, appealing, and easy to choose further increases uptake. Changing defaults can also produce large effects. Food environments strongly shape dietary behavior. Consumers are not uniform; a “willing middle” includes distinct segments with different motivations and barriers, so strategies that work for one group may fail for another.

"Most consumer aren't vegan or meat enthusiast, but occupy the middle position. This 'willing middle' represents different consumer segments with unique motivations and barriers. What works to change behaviour in one consumer group may fail completely for another. Smarter food system change starts by matching strategies to psychology."

"Increasing the availability of plant-based options tends to boost their selection, as does making these options more visible, appealing, and easier to choose. In some cases, changing defaults so that plant-based meals are the standard option can also have surprisingly large effects. As a whole, the evidence increasingly shows that the food environments that surrounds us exerts far more influence over our diets than we often realize."

"Despite years of effort to encourage people to eat less meat, global consumption continues to rise. Chicken consumption is increasing in many countries, and while red meat sales have generally flatlined, total meat consumption remains stubbornly high. Forecasts suggest that this upward trend is likely to persist for years to come."

"Over the last decade, there has been no shortage of attempts to shift our diets in a more plant-based direction, from plant-based burgers designed to mimic meat, campaigns promoting pulses and legumes, novel food technologies, menu redesigns, sustainability labels, recipe innovation, and even restaurants experimenting with making plant-based meals the default option."

Read at Psychology Today