Richter et al. (2023) on Swiss Views on Meat Reduction Policies

Sebastian Richter, Adrian Muller, Mathias Stolze, Isabelle Schneider, and Christian Schader, “Acceptance of Meat Reduction Policies in Switzerland.” iScience 26: 106129, March 17, 2023. 

• Stakeholders in the current food system in Switzerland (as well as elsewhere) might find some reforms aimed at reducing meat consumption to be more acceptable than other reforms. 

• From interviews with 25 stakeholders (political parties, food business associations, relevant government agencies – but not consumers), the authors compiled a list of 37 measures that could reduce meat consumption. 

• 23 stakeholders (including 13 from the original interviewee pool) then indicated their degree of acceptability for each of the 37 measures. For each policy reform, stakeholders indicated either approval; conditional approval (with explanation); rejection; or indifference. 

• The authors group the reforms into seven “types”, such as “voluntary measures” or “information measures”; various versions of incentives; regulations; and others. 

• Research funding, voluntary measures, and information measures all meet with high acceptance. Greater antibiotic control also generated little disapproval. 

•  “The measures most frequently rejected are the regulatory measures ‘mandatory limit on the share of meat products in the overall retail assortments’, ‘regulation of nudging for meat alternatives’ by the state as well as the financial incentives ‘VAT exemption for vegetable foods’, ‘increase VAT for meat products to >7.7%’ [p. 8].” 

• Coercive negative incentive measures (taxes, basically) meet with substantial rejection. 

• Nonprofits, research institutes, and state bodies are generally more accepting of meat-reducing measures; the food industry and political parties are among the most unenthusiastic. 

• Factors affecting acceptance include lead times and grace periods; clarity and transparency; and coherence among multiple policies. 

• Promotion of meat alternatives does not fare particularly well in terms of acceptance. 

• Coherent policy packages (including taxes with earmarked distributions of revenue) might be more acceptable than policies viewed in isolation (which is the approach to approval attitudes taken in this article).