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Framing the futures of animal-free dairy: Using focus groups to explore early-adopter perceptions of the precision fermentation process

This paper reports on the findings from a series of virtual focus groups that explored consumer perceptions of animal-free dairy (AFD), an emerging type of animal product alternative produced using the tools of synthetic biology and precision fermentation. Focus group participants came from an inter...

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Autores principales: Broad, Garrett M., Zollman Thomas, Oscar, Dillard, Courtney, Bowman, Daniel, Le Roy, Brice
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9574361/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36263302
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.997632
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author Broad, Garrett M.
Zollman Thomas, Oscar
Dillard, Courtney
Bowman, Daniel
Le Roy, Brice
author_facet Broad, Garrett M.
Zollman Thomas, Oscar
Dillard, Courtney
Bowman, Daniel
Le Roy, Brice
author_sort Broad, Garrett M.
collection PubMed
description This paper reports on the findings from a series of virtual focus groups that explored consumer perceptions of animal-free dairy (AFD), an emerging type of animal product alternative produced using the tools of synthetic biology and precision fermentation. Focus group participants came from an international sample of potential “early adopters.” To stimulate conversation, participants were presented with a series of visual “moodboards” that framed key arguments both in favor of and in opposition to AFD. Three primary thematic clusters emerged from the discussion. The first focused on issues of “process, safety, and regulation,” centered on the general reaction of participants to the concept of AFD, their primary concerns, key questions, and the assurances they would need in order to support its advancement. The second focused on issues of “consumer preferences and priorities,” highlighted by the often complicated, and sometimes outright contradictory, stated consumer interests of the participants. The third focused on issues of “food technology and the future,” wherein participants expressed broader views on the role of food technology in society, generally speaking, and the potential futures of AFD, specifically. The general consensus among participants was a cautious openness to the idea of AFD. Outright opposition to the concept was rare, but so too was unabashed enthusiasm. Instead, respondents had a number of questions about the nature of the technological process, its overall safety and regulatory standards, its potential contributions to individual health and climate change mitigation, as well as its organoleptic qualities and price to consumers. Among the positive frames, claims about animal welfare were deemed the most pertinent and convincing. Among the negative frames, concerns about messing with nature and creating potential health risks to individuals were seen as the strongest arguments against AFD. The findings suggest that the key to AFD's future as a viable market option will depend in large part on the extent to which it can clearly demonstrate that it is preferable to conventional dairy or its plant-based competitors, particularly in the arena of taste, but also across considerations of health and safety, nutrition, environmental effects, and animal well-being.
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spelling pubmed-95743612022-10-18 Framing the futures of animal-free dairy: Using focus groups to explore early-adopter perceptions of the precision fermentation process Broad, Garrett M. Zollman Thomas, Oscar Dillard, Courtney Bowman, Daniel Le Roy, Brice Front Nutr Nutrition This paper reports on the findings from a series of virtual focus groups that explored consumer perceptions of animal-free dairy (AFD), an emerging type of animal product alternative produced using the tools of synthetic biology and precision fermentation. Focus group participants came from an international sample of potential “early adopters.” To stimulate conversation, participants were presented with a series of visual “moodboards” that framed key arguments both in favor of and in opposition to AFD. Three primary thematic clusters emerged from the discussion. The first focused on issues of “process, safety, and regulation,” centered on the general reaction of participants to the concept of AFD, their primary concerns, key questions, and the assurances they would need in order to support its advancement. The second focused on issues of “consumer preferences and priorities,” highlighted by the often complicated, and sometimes outright contradictory, stated consumer interests of the participants. The third focused on issues of “food technology and the future,” wherein participants expressed broader views on the role of food technology in society, generally speaking, and the potential futures of AFD, specifically. The general consensus among participants was a cautious openness to the idea of AFD. Outright opposition to the concept was rare, but so too was unabashed enthusiasm. Instead, respondents had a number of questions about the nature of the technological process, its overall safety and regulatory standards, its potential contributions to individual health and climate change mitigation, as well as its organoleptic qualities and price to consumers. Among the positive frames, claims about animal welfare were deemed the most pertinent and convincing. Among the negative frames, concerns about messing with nature and creating potential health risks to individuals were seen as the strongest arguments against AFD. The findings suggest that the key to AFD's future as a viable market option will depend in large part on the extent to which it can clearly demonstrate that it is preferable to conventional dairy or its plant-based competitors, particularly in the arena of taste, but also across considerations of health and safety, nutrition, environmental effects, and animal well-being. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-10-03 /pmc/articles/PMC9574361/ /pubmed/36263302 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.997632 Text en Copyright © 2022 Broad, Zollman Thomas, Dillard, Bowman and Le Roy. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Nutrition
Broad, Garrett M.
Zollman Thomas, Oscar
Dillard, Courtney
Bowman, Daniel
Le Roy, Brice
Framing the futures of animal-free dairy: Using focus groups to explore early-adopter perceptions of the precision fermentation process
title Framing the futures of animal-free dairy: Using focus groups to explore early-adopter perceptions of the precision fermentation process
title_full Framing the futures of animal-free dairy: Using focus groups to explore early-adopter perceptions of the precision fermentation process
title_fullStr Framing the futures of animal-free dairy: Using focus groups to explore early-adopter perceptions of the precision fermentation process
title_full_unstemmed Framing the futures of animal-free dairy: Using focus groups to explore early-adopter perceptions of the precision fermentation process
title_short Framing the futures of animal-free dairy: Using focus groups to explore early-adopter perceptions of the precision fermentation process
title_sort framing the futures of animal-free dairy: using focus groups to explore early-adopter perceptions of the precision fermentation process
topic Nutrition
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9574361/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36263302
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.997632
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