Public Perceptions of Alternative Protein Sources: Implications for Responsible Agrifood Transition Pathways

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors! Thanks for submitting this interesting article. I have few points to discuss, including:

1. pag 1, lines 33-37 - The authors talk about inclusive transition, but they do not clearly define what this means, nor what inclusive consumption consists of. It would be good if they defined these concepts!

2. page 5, line 204 - In my opinion, the correct concept is not perceived desirability, but the desirability intention. It would be good to define these concepts well...

3. page 5, lines 235 - It says Appendix A. I didn't find this appendix.

4. page 5, line 238 - I think it is important to present how the respondents were approached. It is important to say how they were accessed, whether on social networks, websites, etc. Was there any strategy for this?

Author Response

Thank you for taking the time to review our study and for making helpful suggestions to improve our manuscript. Please see the attachment with our response to your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The research presented contains general findings considering the consumer perception of three alternative proteins and their likely “success” (measured through perceived desirability and the probability of entering food system in Germany). The research is mildly interesting; however, shallow in its methodologies applied, framing and presentation within the manuscript. I will provide some critiques and suggestions for improving the scientific soundness of the study and manuscript. Although in an improved form, I strongly recommend re-submitting these results for scientific publication as a short communication. I cannot recommend this study nor manuscript for publication in its current state. 

 

1. I have significant issues with the framing of the research in terms of “inclusivity.” This is a stretch and was not the initial motivation for the survey. This is apparent in the sample demographics collected. I highly recommend reframing the research and keeping within the bounds of the methodologies applied - i.e. understanding consumer perceptions.  
2. There is significant literature pertaining to consumer perceptions of algae and insects as alternative protein sources; yet, most of this literature is ignored and explicitely stated does not exist. Please go back to the literature. There is even significant literature on alternative protein sources and consumer perception and acceptance (relevant to the arguement of desireability) in the German context. 
3. Outdated literature/estimates are often stated as fact, when infact the scenarios did not come to fruition. Please be critical and reflective in your research, as is necessary for scientific good practice. 
4. There is confusion between macro- and micro-algae throughout the manuscript. There appears to be an assumption that these are similiar/the same thing, i.e. algae, i.e. seaweed, when in fact they are very different (from nutritive and production standpoints) and should not be grouped together. 
5. Why was familiarity not investigated? This has been shown to be an influential factor in understanding consumer perceptions of alternative protein sources. This should be addressed in the limitations
6. There is a built in bias into the study towards “extreme scenarios” caused by the initial video. Respondents were primed to think about extreme scenarios by being shown the video in the beginning of the study. This likely has large and unobservable bias effects on the study results and needs to be addressed in the limitations. 
7. The sample is not representative of German consumers/population. There is also no mention of German population demographics and how the biased sample contributes to biased results within the limitations. 
8. Figure 1 is missing “a” and “b” in the diagram/graphic. 
9. Information on the statistical analysis should be moved to the methods section. I understand that a variety of statistical tests were used based on data attributes. A basic introduciton and list of statistical tests used and why should be in the methods section. The p- and Chi-squared values for specific tests can be left in the results for clarity during reading. 
10. The split samples, especially for interest in food and adventuresome are very imbalanced. Please remove “interest in food” altogether as results are not reported anyway. Please also address the implications of these imbalances within your limitations. 
11. Please place your findings in the context of other literature within the discussion. Overall, a critical and reflective look into the study (methods) and results is missing within the manuscript.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The quality of English is sufficient. There are a couple of grammatical errors, such as the first sentence “The…systems…and its” I would recommend removing “The” and “its” and then the sentence will make sense. Overall, the language was very understandable and easy to follow. I especially enjoyed the succinct abstract. 

Author Response

Thank you for taking the time to review our study and for making helpful suggestions to improve our manuscript. Please see the attachment with our response to your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

Thank you for the opportunity to learn from your interesting work. I believe the subject is quite important and understanding the public's attitudes toward different types  of alternative proteins can be very important for future innovation planning.

I have some minor comments in the attached PDF, but my primary concerns have to do with the methods employed in the survey, which I will detail below.

1) The methods section should make clear how the respondents were recruited/sampled, and how the characteristics of the resulting sample affect what conclusions can justifiably be made from the analysis. If, as seems to be the case from what I can see, the respondents are a convenience sample, then there are aspects of the resulting demographics (the large number of more well-educated individuals, the larger number of adventurous eaters) that I think are likely inflating assessments of desirability relative to what we might see with a nationally representative sample.

2) I fail to see the benefit in asking people for their perceptions of the long-term probability of any of the outcomes studied. As these assessments are purely speculative, I don't see what use they are for inclusive innovation purposes. This seems to me to be different from the case of desirability, which has clear policy implications.

3) Because many of the variables are likely correlated (i.e., adventurous eating probably increases with education and decreases with age), I'm not sure it makes sense to analyze bivariate relationships only. It could be more appropriate to estimate an ordered logit or probit model, which would allow you to adjust for correlations between variables and would be more consistent with the measurement level of the dependent variables (which are ordinal).

4) As a result of the proceeding three points, I'm not sure that the conclusions can be as strong as currently formulated. Without high confidence that the sample is representative, then making claims about the population as a whole is tricky. One option might be to use census data to reweight the observations to more closely match the actual German population. That might then allow for more generalizable conclusions.

Thank you again for the opportunity to read your interesting work.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for taking the time to review our study and for making helpful suggestions to improve our manuscript. Please see the attachment with our response to your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1.In these extreme future scenarios, where the public's survival would be affected to a great extent, then their perception of alternative protein sources would certainly be positive, whether it be algae, crickets, jellyfish, or something else. But can these results be used as a basis for an inclusive agri-food system transition now? I don't think so, and I hope the authors can give a convincing case.

2.Data on the extent to which these respondents have information about the possibility and desirability of alternative proteins should be tested for reliability and stabliity, which would make the data more convincing.

3.Why would these respondents with individual differences ( age, gender, location, et al) have different views on alternative proteins? There should be some reasonable explanation for this.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Thank you for taking the time to review our study and for making helpful suggestions to improve our manuscript. Please see the attachment with our response to your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for revising your manuscript. I still have some major concerns with the methodology and framings used within the research and manuscript.

1)     My concerns over the use of “algae” have not been addressed. “Algae” is an informal term used to group together very different photosynthesizing species that do not even belong to the same Phylo-Kingdom. The ambiguity behind the term needs to be explicitly stated and the term further broken down into the different “types” that may come to mind for a “lay person.” This needs to be clearly explained in section 2.1

2)     Thank you for adding a limitations section. The limitations need to be discussed in context of literature. Why do you think there is an effect? What for an effect do you suspect the methodological problems brought about? This is not done completely in the current manuscript; rather weak language was used. The limitations of this research are not minimal and the language should reflect this. Your respondents were primed, which is not considered good practice. This needs to be thoroughly discussed. The use of the term "algae" also needs to be further discussed. Perhaps for "lay persons" it does not affect your research results as "lay persons" group all photosynthesizing species in water together; however, without background literature on how consumers perceive these alternative protein sources, it is unclear how much (and how) the use of this term in your survey affects the results. Please do not downplay the limitations and thus over-sell your research.

 

Minor corrections:

line 38: delete the period after responsibly.

line 422: place "A" in front of "similar"

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I enjoyed the English language style of this manuscript. Thank you!

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Hello again,

Thank you for your responses to my comments. While I admit that I'm still not convinced that the way the study was carried out provides very strong evidence for the literature, I also understand that this is an emerging area and that any information is welcome.

I have a few final comments in the attached document that I think need to be addressed in light of some of the changes that have been made in the manuscript in order to try to limit the potential for readers to overinterpret the implications of the survey. 

In addition to these comments, given that you have decided not to use a regression approach, I think it would probably be good to provide information in an appendix on the correlations between the personal characteristics variables, as it is always possible that some of the relationships you find between personal characteristics and attitudes are in fact driven by correlations between the personal characteristics themselves. Given that the personal characteristics variables appear to all be discrete, perhaps Chi-squared tests of association between them would be appropriate, again just to provide the reader a bit more context.

Thank you,

Reviewer

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Efforts to improve the quality of the paper are appreciated.

Author Response

Thank you very much for reviewing our publication for the second time. Your feedback is very much appreciated. Changes have been made to the manuscript based on the comments of other reviewers. We hope that you remain in favour of the revised manuscript.
Thank you again for your time!

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for putting in the time and effort to revise your article. I am happy with its development and wish you all the best.