The emergence of alternative meat in Australia: exploring how food system professionals understand change and the role of ideas about 'healthy, sustainable and ethical'

Abstract

The development and commercialisation of alternative (plant-based and cell-based) meat in Australia since 2017 leveraged and fuelled pre-existing critical discourses about the health, sustainability and ethics of (animal) meat production and consumption. Questions were also raised about the possible subsequent disruption of traditional meat and livestock industries. In Australia, where animal agriculture and meat consumption occupy an esteemed place in national political, economic and cultural life, these questions held even greater significance.

Despite various discourses about what is or isn't sustainable, ethical or healthy about meat production and consumption, the sociological role of these ideas in shaping Australian food culture and food systems is often left unexamined. Deeper understanding of how these ideas operate as mechanisms of change will help to better assess their impacts. The emergence of alternative meat in Australia during 2019-2024 provided a window on this problem. The aims of the research were to explore food system professionals' views and understandings in response to three questions about change in Australia's food system during this period: (1) how are ideas about health, sustainability and ethics related to food evolving and shaping the role of meat in Australian food culture; (2) how has food culture shifted power relations between food system actors in Australia, and vice versa; and (3) are Australia's traditional meat industries likely to be disrupted by the emergence of alternative meat?

Using a modified Delphi research method, 30 food system professionals were interviewed, offering a unique social actor perspective on the emergence of alternative meat and how ideas about health, sustainability, ethics and disruption shaped Australia's food system during the research period. Using this account as a foundation, a cultural economy framework for understanding the emergence of alternative meat was developed. The framework shows how cultural and economic factors intersected and how those processes were shaped by ideas about health, ethics and sustainability. This framework enables closer examination of connections between shifting power relations, the role of meat in Australian food culture and disruption of traditional meat industries. Show more