What is the aim of our project
The VeganmeatUP project is funded by the UK Research and Innovation/Economic and Social Science Research Council (ES/Y003667/1), under the title “Cultural entrepreneurship in vegan meat markets.”
It investigates how value-oriented entrepreneurs sustain their moral claims amidst the rapid mainstreaming of vegan meat markets. By comparing market dynamics in the UK and the Netherlands—two nations with distinct policy goals toward the future-oriented plant-based protein sector—the project seeks to understand how vegan meat start-ups navigate the pressures and expectations of a growing industry.
These start-ups face numerous challenges, including inflated expectations, market pressure to scale up, rushed entries of low-quality products, and controversies over the claimed benefits of vegan meat. These issues raise questions about the sector’s ability to achieve its anticipated economic and social impact.
We aim to address the following questions:
- How do vegan meat entrepreneurs experience value conflicts during the transition of vegan meat from an obscure niche to a mainstream market?
- How do vegan meat entrepreneurs construct product narratives and organizational identities that appeal to diverse mainstream consumers?
- What narratives, stories, analogies, and metaphors do value-driven entrepreneurs use to promote their products and capture the attention of the media, the public, investors, and policymakers?
- How are entrepreneurs and other sector members collectively expanding the vegan meat sector?
- What are the roles of diverse sector members in crafting and communicating a collective identity for the UK vegan meat sector?
- What strategies and capabilities do vegan meat entrepreneurs use to navigate a hyped moral market?
- How does society influence cultural entrepreneurship in the vegan meat market?
- How can vegan meat entrepreneurs counter these pressures while continuing their upward trajectory?
What is vegan meat, and why is it revolutionary?
Vegan meat is a disruptive food technology that blends food science with social goals such as reducing animal suffering, improving public health, and fighting climate change. Often referred to as a “revolution,” it has the potential to replace traditional animal meat. Experts predict that by 2040, vegan meat will hold a 25% share of the global animal meat and meat alternatives market (Wunsch, 2021).
By offering products with similar texture and flavor to animal meat, vegan meat enables non-vegans to reduce their meat consumption—a critical step toward achieving Net-Zero goals, as livestock accounts for 14% of global greenhouse-gas emissions (Goulson, 2021). A UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report has highlighted the urgent need to transform our food systems to mitigate the climate crisis (United Nations, 2021), with research showing that plant-based diets lead to significant reductions in emissions, land, and water use (Willett et al., 2019).
Despite its rapid growth, the vegan meat sector faces challenges, including hype, exaggerated expectations, and fierce competition. These pressures, coupled with rushed entries of low-quality products and doubts over its potential for large-scale change, have created an uncertain landscape.
What can you get from this project
Entrepreneurs: strategies that navigate pressures and sustain growth in a hyped moral market; how to engage with national food policies; being part of a community of vegan meat entrepreneurs where you can share concerns, successful strategies and learn from each other.
Policy: advice on how to develop national food policies that include the vegan meat sector, mindful of the interplay between entrepreneur’s value, consumers expectations, hyped moral market dynamics and pressures from meat producers.
Academics: insights for management and entrepreneurship theory into how entrepreneurs can leverage cultural resources to foster firm and sector growth and cope with market pressures.
veganmeatUP 