The attitude-behaviour-gap in organic meat consumption – development of recommendations

Abstract

Overall, the current industrial meat production and the high level of meat consumption lead to a number of serious negative impacts. Thus, meat consumption has to be reduced and the conditions under which meat is produced have to change. Meat production has to move towards a more sustainable, fair and environmentally friendly production. One solution to move towards a more sustainable and ethically justifiable production of meat is organic meat. During the Covid-19 pandemic demand for organic food has already increased and movements like Fridays for Future bring the environmental and ehtical issues of meat consumption into the focus of the public eye. However, the consumption of organic meat is still quite low compared to the consumpion of conventional meat and hasn’t drastically increased in recent years. A mulitity of people say that if they buy meat, they only buy organic meat. However, this does not refelct in their acutal purchasing behaviour. This phenomenon is known as the attitude-behaviour-gap (ABG) and can be witnessed not only in the organic meat market, but for a large number of ehtical and sustainable products. In recent years a lot of research has focused on the attitude- behaviour-gap in organic food consumption and sustainable consumption. However, there is little research specifically focusing on organic meat. Thus, this thesis will focus on the attitude-behaviour-gap in organic meat consumption and what organic meat marketers can do to reduce this gap.