Alternative Proteins for Sustainable and Ethical Food Systems: Consumer, Production, and Supply-Chain Perspectives

Introduction

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.

This Special Issue invites contributions exploring the rapidly evolving landscape of alternative protein-rich food systems (Hefferon, et al., 2023), including a wide range of potential directions like cultured meat, plant-based meat analogues, insect-based foods, and alternative dairy products (e.g., Onwezen & Dagevos (2024) and Pakseresht, et al., (2022)), within the broader contexts of animal welfare, sustainability, production systems, and socio-cultural adoption. In addition to the substantial body of consumer research in this area and the growing literature on other actors (Degieter, et al., 2025), this Special Issue seeks to broaden the analytical lens to encompass upstream and system-level perspectives. More specifically, an increasing number of studies highlight the importance of a system-level perspective and multidimensional approaches that include multiple stakeholders. For example, recent work underlines the need to move from an individual towards a systems perspective (Chater & Loewenstein, 2023). However, the way in which individuals and the system interact in practice remains insufficiently understood. We therefore invite studies that address the central question: How can system- and individual-level perspectives be integrated? This broad question may, for instance, cover the roles and decision-making processes of consumers and other key actors like farmers and producers, the restructuring of agrifood value chains, implications for rural livelihoods, market development and price formation, supply-chain coordination, and the distribution of costs, benefits, and risks associated with transitions toward alternative-protein production models. This might involve a system-levels perspective including specific stakeholder roles, or individual level perspectives like consumers and their link with the food system. We also welcome studies addressing regulatory and ethical frameworks, technological and organizational innovation in production, environmental and life-cycle assessments, and the socio-cultural processes shaping acceptance and legitimacy. Interdisciplinary work, or approaches that include multiple stakeholders or perspectives, are especially welcomed. 

Contributions may, for example, examine how production systems for cultured meat or insect farming align with animal-welfare standards; how farmers and agribusinesses evaluate and manage the economic feasibility of shifting to new forms of protein production; how certification, labelling, and regulatory regimes enable or constrain market access; and how consumers’ willingness to pay and trust dynamics interact with supply-chain development and broader food-system transitions. The overarching goal is gain more insights in the dynamics of individual versus system-level transitions, and thereby bring together interdisciplinary research that connects consumption and production with governance, economic incentives, ethics, and sustainability, thereby advancing a more holistic understanding of the pathways, trade-offs and system-wide consequences associated with emerging alternative-protein futures.
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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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

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Author guidelines

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.

Key Dates

Closing date for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2026