The global food system is undergoing profound transformation driven by growing concerns about climate change, biodiversity loss, animal welfare, public health, and the long-term sustainability of livestock-based production models. Against this backdrop, alternative proteins, including cultured meat, plant-based meat analogues, insect-based products and novel dairy substitutes, have emerged as promising pathways for addressing environmental pressures while meeting evolving consumer expectations for ethical, healthy and sustainable diets. Although consumer research on these products has expanded rapidly, a comprehensive understanding of how alternative proteins reshape the broader agrifood system remains limited. Existing studies often address consumption, production, regulation, and socio-cultural dynamics in isolation, leaving significant knowledge gaps regarding value-chain restructuring, producer adoption, economic feasibility, and governance.
We specifically ask all invited contributions to reflect on the main question from different perspectives and to add a detailed policy section as this is identified as an often neglected area (Onwezen & Dagevos, 2024), which is especially relevant in the context of individual and system-level transitions.
The Special Issue is framed by the following aims:
- Reflect on a topical issue of individual-level versus system-level dynamics from a wide range of perspectives. By inviting a broad range of perspectives on a shared question, we aim to gain deeper insights into this challenging area. We expect to further clarify how individual decision-making can be conceptually linked to system-level dynamics such as regulations, policies and social norms, and how these interactions can be leveraged to accelerate the protein transition.
- Integrate consumer-focused research with production and supply-chain perspectives.
The Special Issue encourages contributions that examine both the demand side (e.g., consumer acceptance, preferences, willingness to pay) and the supply side (e.g., production decisions, farm-level constraints, cost structures, supply-chain coordination). This will support a more complete understanding of how alternative proteins are produced, marketed, and adopted in practice. - Advance understanding of sustainability, environmental and animal-welfare implications.
The Issue will support empirical and theoretical work assessing how alternative-protein technologies and new value-chain configurations affect environmental footprints, land use, resource efficiency, biodiversity, and animal welfare, including assessments that compare conventional and emerging production models. - Analyze regulatory, ethical and socio-cultural dynamics influencing adoption and legitimacy.
We aim to examine how regulatory frameworks, certification and labeling regimes, governance structures, cultural narratives, and stakeholder values (farmers, producers, processors, retailers, consumers and civil-society groups) enable or constrain transitions toward alternative-protein systems. - Address economic feasibility, market development and value-chain restructuring.
We encourage contributions analysing cost structures, scalability, investment incentives, price and market formation, supply-chain coordination, and producer decision-making as alternative proteins expand. - Stimulate methodological and empirical innovation. The Issue welcomes robust methodological diversity, including discrete-choice experiments, mixed-methods studies, socio-economic modelling, comparative case studies, life-cycle and material-flow analyses, longitudinal adoption studies, and policy and stakeholder analysis, particularly in under-researched regions and production contexts.
- Generate actionable insights for policy and practice. The Issue will offer evidence to guide policy-makers, agrifood industry stakeholders, producer organisations and civil-society actors engaged in sustainable protein transitions and animal-welfare reform.
These aims will be achieved by inviting a curated collection of original empirical research, comparative analyses, conceptual and theoretical papers, systematic reviews and in-depth case studies that align with the thematic focus and reflect the interdisciplinary scope of the British Food Journal, particularly in relation to consumer choice, market and value-chain dynamics, sustainability, production systems, and food-system innovation.
List of Topic Areas
- Consumer acceptance, preferences, and willingness to pay for alternative meats and dairy products.
- Farm-level decision-making and economic feasibility of adopting alternative-protein production systems.
- Sustainability, environmental and life-cycle assessments of alternative protein supply chains.
- Regulatory frameworks, certification, labelling, and standards for emerging protein products.
- Cultural, ethical, and societal narratives shaping acceptance and legitimacy.
- Communication, trust-building, and transparency strategies across the supply chain.
Submission Information
Submissions of full manuscripts are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here:
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see:
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”.
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.
Journal Information: Scopus Journal Q1, H-Index 116
Key Dates
Closing date for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2026
For more details refer here
