Op-ed by Sofia Kuhn, Director of Public Insights and Engagement at EIT Food.
The food industry is in the midst of a quiet revolution. Supermarket shelves are now lined with plant-based burgers, nuggets, and sausages, while cultivated meat edges closer to market approval.
Yet despite the explosion of innovation, most consumers remain unconvinced. Meat alternatives are struggling to move from novelty items into everyday staples, not because of a lack of science or investment, but because of the way they are positioned within our diets and cultures.
Meat, however, remains at the heart of the problem. It accounts for nearly 60% of the food industry’s greenhouse gas emissions, making it one of the most resource-intensive foods we produce. Swapping steaks for plant-based alternatives is often seen as a straightforward solution, but the reality is more complicated: these products need to win over consumers not just on ethics, but on taste, tradition, and cultural meaning.
That can be a hard sell, not just for self-confessed meat lovers. Insights from the EIT Food Consumer Observatory show that meat consumption is tied not only to taste and nutrition, but to values and cultural understandings. The study was centred around a first-of-its-kind semiotic analysis to understand the cultural aspects of meat on a European level, studying the signs and symbols consumers associate with meat.
As newer products, plant-based alternatives have weaker links to these social contexts. It’s the same story for cultivated meat – real meat grown directly from animal cells. Though it offers familiar tastes and textures, uptake will depend significantly on how it is marketed in relation to traditional meat. While not yet approved in Europe, many start-ups are preparing products for when legislation catches up with innovation.
How meat makes us who we are
It is not simply preference that pushes us to favour meat-based products, but the rituals of society and our interactions with other people, as well as our personal identities, that shape our choices. Through an investigation that incorporated semiotic and qualitative analysis of consumer perceptions of meat and meat alternatives, researchers from the EIT Food Consumer Observatory found a series of positive associations with traditional meat including community, ethics, and celebration.
The results illustrate that successful positioning of meat alternatives must encompass associations with tradition and identity. The rituals we share, from Saturday morning bacon sandwiches to Christmas dinners, hold huge social currency across all sectors of society.
Incorporating meat alternatives into these established rituals is essential to improving impressions across the board.
Changing the meat-free narrative
The task of shifting perceptions of meat alternatives can be complex. Connecting with established meat lovers involves overcoming barriers including associations with over-processing and lack of indulgence. It becomes critical to emphasise taste and wholesomeness, focusing less on innovation and lab environments and more on the values behind products.
Futuristic or plastic-y branding can turn people away while natural imagery and colours result in a more appealing prospect.
Equally, moving away from the ‘preachy’ tone often associated with meat-free messaging is key. Consumers frequently connect it with activism and anger. A welcoming, universal appeal is more likely to make meat alternatives part of mainstream diets.
Building consumer trust
For meat alternatives to reach their full potential, they need more than science: they need a story. A story that speaks to tradition, identity and indulgence rather than novelty. We don’t just eat food, we share it, celebrate with it, and anchor memories around it.
Meat alternatives can find a place in our diets and routines once we stop framing them as ‘fake’ and start framing them as familiar, wholesome, communal, and delicious.
To unlock the full promise of cultivated meat, we have a dual opportunity: building consumer trust in its authenticity, safety, healthiness, and environmental benefits, while also fostering greater awareness of the hidden costs of traditional meat production.
Many consumers are not yet aware of the health and environmental impacts associated with conventional meat, making cultivated meat seem unnecessary or even ‘too artificial’. By redefining what responsible meat consumption looks like, cultivated meat can be positioned as a logical next step – one that honours cultural traditions around meat and maintains familiar taste and texture, while offering a smarter, more sustainable way forward.
If meat alternatives are to move beyond niche appeal, they must do more than promise sustainability – they must earn a place at our tables, in our traditions, and in our sense of who we are.
Cultivated and plant-based meats have the potential to deliver familiar tastes and rituals without the hidden costs of conventional production, but only if they are presented as authentic, joyful, and deeply human.
The future of food will not be decided in the lab alone; it will be shaped in kitchens, at family gatherings, and across cultures. A thoughtful makeover in how we tell the story of meat alternatives could turn them from substitutes into staples – and in doing so, reshape not only our diets, but our shared vision of what it means to eat well.
Learn more about EIT Food at www.eitfood.eu.
