Study: UK Attitudes to meat and animal welfare

AgencyUK are conducting real time primary research. How will Brexit and Covid 19 affect our attitudes to and methods of buying meat?  It’s part of our series highlighting Britain’s changing attitudes to meat consumption.

November 2019 Survey – Key results: 

• Over ⅓ of respondents describe themselves as ‘flexitarian’.
• 48.9% identify as ‘meat eaters’.
• The most important factors when purchasing meat were reported as Value and Animal Welfare. The responses for these were identical at 48.7%. 
• Of those who don’t eat meat, 72.7% cited diet choice rather than a specific issue like Environmental Reasons 22.7% or Ethical/ Compassionate Reasons 4.5% – does this point to culture/fashion trend? Something we will investigate further.
• 38.7% reported a reduction in meat consumption over the last 6 months. Of which 50% are ‘Generally trying to reduce meat consumption’ and 34.8% for Environmental Reasons.
• ‘Value for Money’ is cited as a driving factor for buying, but not for avoiding meat.
• So, if meat was more expensive it would probably mean less meat eaters would buy, as you may expect.
• But if meat was cheaper, it may not attract avoiders to buy more meat.
• We asked where people typically buy meat and only 4.2% responded ‘online retailer’ which is surprisingly low.
• Something that is likely to change due to increased reliance on online shopping (Covid 19).

Please participate in the April 2020 Tracking study here… http://tiny.cc/AUK_Meat_Survey_2020

Source: AgencyUK ‘Attitudes towards purchasing meat’ Questionnaire, November 2019. 141 respondents.