Consumer Perception of Novel Foods: A Case of Cultured Meat

Abstract

The goal of this master thesis was to assess consumer perception of cultured meat by focusing on the role of disgust emotion. Cultured meat is a novel meat alternative, which has similar sensory qualities to conventional meat, but is produced in vitro, outside of an animal. To assess consumer perception of cultured meat, a laboratory-based experiment with between-subject design was conducted, where 73 participants were divided into two groups, informed and blind group. These groups were exposed to two images of meals made from cultured chicken. An experimental manipulation was done at the beginning of the experiment, where for informed group these stimuli were framed as meals from cultured chicken, while for blind group the same stimuli were framed as meals from organic chicken. This was done to prime core disgust with disgust emotion in informed group, which was expected to result in a more negative perception of cultured meat on implicit and explicit level. To capture implicit responses, two biometric measurement techniques were used, namely GSR measurement for arousal and facial expression analysis software Affectiva Affdex for capturing disgust emotion. For explicit responses a 7-point Likert scale was used which measured how appetizing the stimuli were for participants. Results showed that priming of disgust system with emotion of disgust did not lead to any significant difference in physiological measurements. Disgust intensity was on similarly low level for both groups, while variation of arousal was found to be unrelated to disgust. However, self-reported appetizingness differed between the groups for cultured chicken burger. Informed participants perceived this meal as significantly more appetizing than blind participants. Hence, several disgust moderators were found to moderate disgust intensity. From physiological measurements only arousal was found to have a significant relationship with self-reported appetizingness for informed group when subjects were exposed to cultured chicken burger. Consequently, emotion of disgust did not influence consumer perception of cultured meat, while explicit perception of cultured meat was relatively positive. Uncanny valley hypothesis can be used as a potential explanation for perception of cultured chicken burger. Another emotion could have played a primary role in this case driving the variation of arousal, while compensatory consumption behind uncanny valley hypothesis could have led to higher ratings of cultured meat burger, a calorie-rich meal, to reduce an unpleasant feeling.