Hi Bruce, thank you for your response and engagement with the paper over the course of the project.
However, I don’t think this reply engages with the key arguments I make in the paper.
Why did GFI initially adopt the PTC paradigm?
I cite and discuss a number of the studies you mention to support this point in the section The PTC premise. I make four specific critiques of this body of literature—can you address these directly?
These studies generally don’t find PTC to be the top three factors in determining food choice. [Two of the three studies I cite do find PT as the top two factors; however, I think this primarily reflects issue (3). See below.]
The rankings in these studies reflect what people perceive as the most important factors rather than what would actually cause them to change their diets.
The cited studies were designed primarily to investigate the role of a few particular factors in food choice rather than to identify the most important factors. This explains why the studies examine only a handful of factors rather than the myriad influences of food choice.
These studies analyze the average ranking of each factor rather than how individual consumers rank the factors. Interpreting these averages as the preferences of individuals invokes the ecological fallacy: even if PTC were the most important factors on average, this does not imply that individual participants would each rank PTC as most important.
I’m now aware of the Food Choice Questionnaire literature Chris Bryant is referring to, summarized in Cunha (2018), which addresses critique (3) to some extent, but none of the others. As I’d expect with more factors in play, this study also doesn’t find PT or PTC to be the top factors across 26 country-study pairs: instead, only 35% country-study pairs had PT as the top two factors and none of the pairs had PTC as the top three factors. Addressing (4) in this analysis would likely make the results more pessimistic for PT(C).
I look forward to Chris’s forthcoming work on the topic; perhaps it will change my mind, especially if it’s able to address (2).
if we can create products that compete on price and taste, sales will go up quite a lot
Do you agree that the Malan 2022 field trial may have achieved PT-competitiveness? If so, is that the sort of adoption and displacement rate you expected given PT-competitiveness?
Our basic view is that price and taste are table stakes—that is, they will be necessary for alt proteins to compete with conventional meat.
This seems like the “PT is necessary but not sufficient” framing that you and others have recently adopted. Can you explain in some rough sense how much of the effort to cause widespread displacement you think PT-competitiveness represents? (I’m borrowing framing from Abraham Rowe in another comment.) For example, maybe PT-equivalence is only a small (but necessary) part of the puzzle in your view, so represents 5% of the total effort required; or it represents most of the effort, say 85%. If this is meaningful to you, can you give a number that represents your views? If not, can you propose an alternative?
Thanks very much, Jacob—I’m in Asia for work at the moment and in all-day meetings, so it’s going to take me a bit to get back to this, but I’m grateful to you for getting this conversation going. I skimmed the discussion but want to read that more thoroughly, too. I should be able to read all comments with intentionality and offer a few more thoughts this coming weekend, I expect/hope.
[EDIT, Sunday night: I read through all comments this weekend, but it will be next weekend before I’m able to craft my thoughts into something intelligible and (I hope at least somewhat) concise; that said, I’m not sure I have much to add beyond what jacva & Jack_S (and I) have already written. I think the one thing that might be additive is just a bit more thinking about my (and GFI’s) belief that if alt proteins fail, industrial animal meat consumption will rise inexorably and globally (+ more on the analogy to renewables & EVs) - anyway, see you back here next weekend, and sorry for my delay; I’m grateful for the exchange].
[Added point for clarity: In my response above, I was sharing our response to the three questions and 2 critiques that were sent from Sentient Media (SM). I thought those replies might be clarifying to others, since they were SM’s questions and critiques for this article about your paper.]
Just four three quick thoughts in response to your precise questions—more to come:
1) I do believe that the evidence is overwhelming that taste and price are necessary w/r/t consumer choice on food generally and, more importantly, w/regard to any product that might decrease industrial meat consumption.
Put another way, I don’t think I’ve seen anything in your article (or anywhere else) that challenges the idea that for something to replace industrial animal meat, it will have to taste as good (or better) and compete on price.
I find the 17 citations hereconvincing (and Chris Bryant’s observation that “price and taste (and health) are always the dominant determinants of food choice” across many other studies with 100+ citations.
2) I agree with your dubiousness about studies that simply ask people what matters to them, but I’m not sure it makes sense to discount what people say entirely—especially when it’s this consistent and also appears in the precise context we’re discussing (see here).
See also KFC, Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s, and fast food generally. This feels (to me) like corroboration of the importance of taste and price (and convenience) to food choices. Wal-Mart is the nation’s number one grocer for a reason, I suspect.
3) I like your question about how important taste and price are to displacement (i.e., 5% v. 85%, etc.); I’m going to think some more about it and will send along some thoughts.
Hi Bruce, thank you for your response and engagement with the paper over the course of the project.
However, I don’t think this reply engages with the key arguments I make in the paper.
I cite and discuss a number of the studies you mention to support this point in the section The PTC premise. I make four specific critiques of this body of literature—can you address these directly?
These studies generally don’t find PTC to be the top three factors in determining food choice. [Two of the three studies I cite do find PT as the top two factors; however, I think this primarily reflects issue (3). See below.]
The rankings in these studies reflect what people perceive as the most important factors rather than what would actually cause them to change their diets.
The cited studies were designed primarily to investigate the role of a few particular factors in food choice rather than to identify the most important factors. This explains why the studies examine only a handful of factors rather than the myriad influences of food choice.
These studies analyze the average ranking of each factor rather than how individual consumers rank the factors. Interpreting these averages as the preferences of individuals invokes the ecological fallacy: even if PTC were the most important factors on average, this does not imply that individual participants would each rank PTC as most important.
I’m now aware of the Food Choice Questionnaire literature Chris Bryant is referring to, summarized in Cunha (2018), which addresses critique (3) to some extent, but none of the others. As I’d expect with more factors in play, this study also doesn’t find PT or PTC to be the top factors across 26 country-study pairs: instead, only 35% country-study pairs had PT as the top two factors and none of the pairs had PTC as the top three factors. Addressing (4) in this analysis would likely make the results more pessimistic for PT(C).
I look forward to Chris’s forthcoming work on the topic; perhaps it will change my mind, especially if it’s able to address (2).
Do you agree that the Malan 2022 field trial may have achieved PT-competitiveness? If so, is that the sort of adoption and displacement rate you expected given PT-competitiveness?
This seems like the “PT is necessary but not sufficient” framing that you and others have recently adopted. Can you explain in some rough sense how much of the effort to cause widespread displacement you think PT-competitiveness represents? (I’m borrowing framing from Abraham Rowe in another comment.) For example, maybe PT-equivalence is only a small (but necessary) part of the puzzle in your view, so represents 5% of the total effort required; or it represents most of the effort, say 85%. If this is meaningful to you, can you give a number that represents your views? If not, can you propose an alternative?
Thanks very much, Jacob—I’m in Asia for work at the moment and in all-day meetings, so it’s going to take me a bit to get back to this, but I’m grateful to you for getting this conversation going. I skimmed the discussion but want to read that more thoroughly, too. I should be able to read all comments with intentionality and offer a few more thoughts this coming weekend, I expect/hope.
[EDIT, Sunday night: I read through all comments this weekend, but it will be next weekend before I’m able to craft my thoughts into something intelligible and (I hope at least somewhat) concise; that said, I’m not sure I have much to add beyond what jacva & Jack_S (and I) have already written. I think the one thing that might be additive is just a bit more thinking about my (and GFI’s) belief that if alt proteins fail, industrial animal meat consumption will rise inexorably and globally (+ more on the analogy to renewables & EVs) - anyway, see you back here next weekend, and sorry for my delay; I’m grateful for the exchange].
[Added point for clarity: In my response above, I was sharing our response to the three questions and 2 critiques that were sent from Sentient Media (SM). I thought those replies might be clarifying to others, since they were SM’s questions and critiques for this article about your paper.]
Just
fourthree quick thoughts in response to your precise questions—more to come:1) I do believe that the evidence is overwhelming that taste and price are necessary w/r/t consumer choice on food generally and, more importantly, w/regard to any product that might decrease industrial meat consumption.
Put another way, I don’t think I’ve seen anything in your article (or anywhere else) that challenges the idea that for something to replace industrial animal meat, it will have to taste as good (or better) and compete on price.
I find the 17 citations here convincing (and Chris Bryant’s observation that “price and taste (and health) are always the dominant determinants of food choice” across many other studies with 100+ citations.
2) I agree with your dubiousness about studies that simply ask people what matters to them, but I’m not sure it makes sense to discount what people say entirely—especially when it’s this consistent and also appears in the precise context we’re discussing (see here).
See also KFC, Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s, and fast food generally. This feels (to me) like corroboration of the importance of taste and price (and convenience) to food choices. Wal-Mart is the nation’s number one grocer for a reason, I suspect.
3) I like your question about how important taste and price are to displacement (i.e., 5% v. 85%, etc.); I’m going to think some more about it and will send along some thoughts.
More to come—thanks again,
Bruce