Nutritional implications of substituting plant-based proteins for meat: evidence from home scan data

Abstract There is growing concern among policymakers and researchers about the negative health and climate impacts of meat consumption. Consumers are encouraged to re-evaluate their dietary choices to preserve our ecosystem and reduce the burden of diet-related diseases. However, limited information is available about how price changes in animal protein sources affect plant-based protein demand and the consequences for nutrient intake and/or diet quality. The goal of the present paper is to fill this gap by explaining how consumers react to price changes in animal protein types and to present the implications for nutrition or diet quality. This paper applied the exact affine stone index implicit (EASI) Marshallian demand system to 2021 home scan panel data collated by the Kantar Worldpanel to estimate both price and expenditure elasticities. Twelve food groups of seven animal-based protein products and five plant-based protein products were considered. The results revealed that dairy and eggs are daily necessities for the people of Scotland. The demand for fish and non-dairy milk are the most sensitive to price. Estimates based on expenditure elasticities show that beef is considered a luxury and a highly substitutable product in the Scottish diet. Peas are relatively basic, essential foodstuffs. In general, increasing the price of animal protein sources will shift demand towards plant protein. On the positive side, there will be a significant reduction in cholesterol and fat purchases. However, there would also be a significant reduction in the total amount of protein, carbohydrates, and healthy fats, such as unsaturated fatty acids, purchased by the average household. This shows that increases in plant-based protein are not enough to compensate for the reductions in essential macro- and micronutrient purchases from animal protein. From the climate perspective, reductions in meat purchases could reduce emissions from production and consumption.