(AGENPARL) – lun 25 settembre 2023 nutrients
Article
Sustainability Perception of Italian Consumers: Is it Possible to
Replace Meat, and What Is the Best Alternative?
Vittoria Aureli 1, Alessandra Nardi 2, Nadia Palmieri 3, *, Daniele Peluso 4, Jacopo Niccolò Di Veroli 1,
Umberto Scognamiglio 1 and Laura Rossi 1, *
Citation: Aureli, V.; Nardi, A.;
Palmieri, N.; Peluso, D.; Di Veroli,
J.N.; Scognamiglio, U.; Rossi, L.
Sustainability Perception of Italian
Consumers: Is it Possible to Replace
CREA Council for Agricultural Research and Economics—Research Centre for Food and Nutrition,
CREA Council for Agricultural Research and Economics—Research Centre for Engineering and Agro-Food
Processing, 00015 Monterotondo, Italy
Abstract: Growing worldwide food demand with its environmental impacts requires a reshaping
of food consumption. This study aims to evaluate the degree of Italian consumers’ awareness of
sustainability and whether protein alternatives to meat could be accepted. A cross-sectional survey
was carried out on a group of 815 respondents, representative of the Italian adult population for
geography, gender, and age, using multivariate analysis together with cluster analysis. Lack of
awareness of the consequences of food choices on the environment was found in 45% of respondents,
and 51% reduced their consumption of meat. Typical foods of the Mediterranean diet (84% legumes
82% eggs, and 77% fish) were selected as the preferred sources of protein to replace meat, while
insects and insect-based products were less accepted (67%). The importance of meat is the latent
factor that explains more than 50% of the common variance observed in the factor analysis. The
cluster analysis confirmed the importance of meat for Italian consumers, emphasizing other aspects of
the sustainability of food choices. Cluster 1 (25.6%) considered meat very important. Two out of five
clusters (clusters 2 and 3, 38%) considered meat replaceable in the diet, and cluster 4 (31.3%) included
meat consumers that were willing to be sustainable. Cluster 5 identifies the “unsustainable consumers”
(5.7%). In conclusion, besides the perceived importance of meat, there is room for recommendations
for its reduction by proposing alternative foods already present in the Mediterranean diet.
Meat, and What Is the Best
Alternative? Nutrients 2023, 15, 3861.
Keywords: sustainability; consumers’ behavior; dietary recommendations; meat; meat alternative; Italy
https://doi.org/10.3390/
Academic Editor: Joerg Koenigstorfer
Received: 20 August 2023
Revised: 29 August 2023
Accepted: 29 August 2023
Published: 5 September 2023
Copyright: © 2023 by the authors.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).
1. Introduction
The increasing world population will inevitably cause an increase in food demand [1],
especially in the most developed areas that have an unsustainable food consumption pattern, consuming more food than necessary, mainly based on animal products, processed
foods, and saturated fats that inevitably have an impact on water, land use, and gas production [2]. It is estimated that 26% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE), 70%
of freshwater consumption, the occupation of half the world’s habitable land, and 78% of
global eutrophication of oceans and freshwater is due to agriculture [3]. Livestock production, in particular beef and lamb, contributes to 14.5% of total global GHGE [4], either in
terms of GHGE or land use [5] and meat consumption largely exceeds the recommendations
in several countries with an average of 34.5 kg per person per year worldwide and 80 kg
per capita in Italy [6]. The food patterns of North and West Europe and the United States
have the highest levels of carbon footprints, being, therefore, primarily responsible for
environmental problems [7], but also bringing social, ethical, and economic implications
for future generations [8].
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Environmental protection is included in the framework guidelines of the World Health
Organization (WHO) to be beneficial from a healthy point of view and contribute to achieving global sustainability goals [9]. In Italy too, recommendations for dietary choices that are
protective of the environment and promote a sustainable food system have been included in
dietary guidelines [10]. A sustainable diet is defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as an eating pattern with minimal environmental impact, which guarantees food
security and health for future generations, which is protective and respectful of biodiversity
and the environment, and is acceptable, accessible, and affordable [8]. In this sense, a diet
with a low quantity of animal products and a high proportion of plant-based foods has
positive effects on human cardio-metabolic health [11–14] is correlated with a reduction in
overall mortality [15–17] and will positively impact on the environment with a relevant
decrease of GHGE [18]. Cereals and legumes are characteristic vegetable protein elements
of the Mediterranean dietary pattern. Legumes are an excellent source of protein that
could replace the consumption of animal proteins; besides their healthy nutritional profile,
legumes also represent an advantage from an environmental point of view (e.g., fixing the
nitrogen in the soil, facilitating circulation of soil nutrients and water retention [19]) despite
the limits of a low level of productivity in Mediterranean areas [20].
In recent years, sources of protein alternatives to meat such as algae, jellyfish, insects,
and insect derivatives, traditionally used in Africa, Asia, and South America [21], have
been proposed in addition to the foods traditionally recommended as meat replacements
(e.g., fish, legumes, nuts, eggs, and dairy products). Despite the increasing interest in
these new protein sources, people’s acceptance represents an important barrier to the
consumption of very different foods in European countries [22], including Italy. Other
typologies of alternative sources of proteins include lab-grown meat (from cell culture),
and plant-based meat alternatives (with or without GMOs). Lab-grown meat, or in vitro
meat, means meat produced through tissue engineering technologies without breeding
and killing animals [23]. Laboratory production reduces the environmental impact of
livestock and controls the composition and quality of meat [24]. However, cultured meat
production is still very expensive [25] with the problem of consumer acceptance largely
unexplored in Italy [26]. In addition, lab-grown meat needs to be assessed in terms of
safety considering that it is a new product and dangers could occur from the use of specific
materials, additives, ingredients (including potential allergens), and equipment used for
cell-based food production [27]. Moreover, it will be necessary to understand whether
the assumed benefits of the greater sustainability of lab-grown meat can be realized and
guaranteed compared to conventionally produced foods [28].
At the moment, the most common meat alternatives on the market are plant-based
meat substitutes, which have seen a significant increase in sales in recent years [29]. Substitutes can be found in various formats such as burgers, sausages, and ground beef, which
are remarkably close to the original texture and organoleptic properties of meat [30] and
have largely been accepted by consumers.
Despite the ongoing expansion of the meat alternative market, consumers are still
too often unaware of the impact of their food choices on the environment. In fact, human
health and animal welfare are the main motivations for consumers to reduce or even
eliminate meat consumption, while environmental issues are relevant for a minority of the
population [31]. According to Hartmann et al. [32], it is the lack of awareness of the negative
impact that food production has on the environment that results in non-sustainable food
choices.
This work originates from the idea of having a benchmark for the development of
sustainability recommendations in the framework of dietary guidelines that in Italy were
provided without an evaluation of consumers’ considerations of sustainability [10]. To the
best of the authors’ knowledge, no similar assessments have been carried out in Italy on
a representative sample of the population. Hence, the research questions and the gaps
that this study intended to fill in were (i) how much attention do Italian consumers pay
to the environmental consequences of their dietary choices? (ii) To what extent is meat
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considered essential or are alternatives acceptable to Italian consumers? (iii) What kind
of policymaking would consumers welcome to increase the sustainability of their eating
behaviors? (iv) Is it possible to identify socio-demographic characteristics related to the
sustainability of food consumption? These data have practical applications related to
the possibility of providing real-life suggestions aimed at improving the sustainability of
consumer food choices.
The objectives of this study were to evaluate the degree of Italian consumers’ awareness of food sustainability and whether alternative proteins to meat could be recommended
in the context of dietary guidelines and nutritional advice, hypothesizing a conservative
attitude of Italian consumers toward new foods that are markedly different to traditional
foods [26,33].
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Design of the Study
A cross-sectional survey was carried out in Italy on 815 adults (over 18 years), nationally representative for geography, gender, and age. The fieldwork was conducted in
the period between 22 and 28 March 2022 by a specialized market research agency, SWG
Italy® . The data were collected through online interviews using the CAWI (Computer
Assisted Web Interviewing) technique on a group of adults residing in Italy, extracted
from a panel that includes over 60,000 individuals, profiled according to the main national
socio-demographic variables. A random selection method to identify the respondents was
used, stratifying area of residence, age group, and gender. To improve representativeness
for education, a Random Iterative Weighting was used. The target distribution was the
most recently available distribution of educational level in Italy (at the time of the survey),
stratified according to the area of residence, age group, and gender, as provided by the
National Institute of Statistics [34]. The survey size was defined to guarantee a maximum
margin of error of 3.5% at 95% confidence intervals (CI). Before the start of data collection,
respondents were required to sign a privacy agreement and consent form for personal data
collection and processing in accordance with the Italian data protection law (Legislative
Decree 101/2018), in line with the European Commission’s general data protection regulation (679/2016). Participants were informed about the objective of the research and the
consequent statistical analysis. Participation in the study was fully voluntary and anonymous, and subjects could withdraw from the survey at any time and for any reason. The
study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki [35], and all
procedures involving research study participants were approved and are in line with the
SWG code of conduct [36]. As the assessment did not involve any invasive procedures or
induce any changes in dietary patterns, the study did not require approval from the ethics
committee.
2.2. Assessment Tool
The questionnaire used in the present paper was previously validated on the Italian
population. The questionnaire resulting from the validation process can be found in the
supplementary material of the paper of Aureli et al. [37]. No further modifications were
carried out on the assessment tool. The questionnaire was conceived in order to assess
the perception of Italian consumers on the theme of the environmental impact of food
choices. The outcomes of the assessment could be used for the development of tailored
recommendations.
In synthesis, a multi-section questionnaire was administered with an initial part
covering socio-demographic information (gender, age, region of residence, educational
level, and income) and self-reported weight and height. The key elements of the assessment
tool consisted of 12 questions that comprise 71 items from which three sections could
be identified: (i) food sustainability knowledge (4 questions accounting for 30 items);
(ii) sources of proteins alternative to meat (3 questions accounting for 20 items); (iii) eating
behaviors (5 questions accounting for 21 items). Continuous scale questions were mingled
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with categorical questions requiring yes/no responses. In the case of continuous scale
questions, answers were provided through a 10-point Likert scale (1 corresponding to
“strongly disagree” to 10 corresponding to “strongly agree”).
2.3. Data Analysis
Absolute frequencies and percentages were used to describe categorical items; continuous items were summarized as mean and standard deviation (SD).
In order to reduce data dimension, Factor Analysis (FA) was performed. The Principal
Component Analysis (PCA) method was used for the extraction of factors. With the
aim of optimizing the loading factor of each item Varimax rotation was applied. For all
the extracted factors, eigenvalues, proportions, and cumulative proportions of explained
common variance were computed. The proportion of explained common variance was
used as a criterion for factor selection, assuming a threshold of 10%. For each of the selected
factors, we derived a corresponding score considering the items whose factor loading was
greater than 0.35. Scores were defined as the weighted average of responses to these items,
assuming factor loadings as weights. Histograms were used to describe their empirical
distributions. Kernel density estimates and normal densities were superimposed.
Based on the defined scores a non-hierarchical cluster analysis was undertaken. The
k-means clustering method was chosen to minimize within-cluster variances. The choice of
cluster number was based on the Pseudo F Statistic and Cubic Clustering Criterion.
Statistical analyses were conducted using SAS (version 9.4) and R (version 4.2).
3. Results and Discussion
3.1. Characteristics of the Survey
Table 1 shows that the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents are in
line with the Italian socio-demographic composition [34] as far as gender, age, and area of
residence are concerned, as expected from the sampling procedure. After the weighting of
the data, the educational level distribution, in which the higher levels were overrepresented,
was also found to be in line with Italian official statistics improving the representativeness
of the sample.
Table 1. Population socio-demographic information and body mass index (BMI) with weight.
Gender
Woman
407.05
407.95
49.94%
50.06%
Mean = 43.43 SD = 12.68
Age groups
18–35
35–45
45–55
55–65
197.42
170.09
213.80
218.65
26.07%
28.87%
26.23%
26.83%
Family size
85.72
222.20
232.41
210.31
50.36
10.52%
27.26%
28.52%
25.80%
6.18%
1.02%
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Table 1. Cont.
Presence of children in the family
Age ? 11 years
Age > 11 years
178.91
130.45
505.63
21.95%
16.01%
62.04%
Education level
(primary school or lower)
Middle-low
(secondary school)
High-middle
(first university level)
(university degree or higher)
62.73
7.70%
525.04
64.42%
107.42
13.18%
119.80
14.7%
Area of origin
Northwest Italy
Northeast Italy
Central Italy
South Italy
Island
216.89
158.86
161.71
188.69
88.84
26.61%
19.49%
19.84%
23.16%
10.9%
Household income
36,000 EUR
157.23
366.33
205.51
21.56%
50.25%
28.19%
Body mass index
Underweight
Normal weight
Overweight
Obese
32.10
465.89
221.57
95.43
3.94%
57.16%
27.19%
11.71%
Working activity
Student
Housemaker
Retired
Unemployed or looking for a
first job
Manual worker
Employee
Self-employed
Others
66.40
85.62
33.61
8.15%
10.51%
4.12%
57.84
7.09%
101.35
295.60
130.03
44.54
12.44%
36.27%
15.96%
5.46%
Urban