The Price is Not Right: Consumers Overestimate Prices of Plant-Based Meat Alternatives

Consumers often hesitate to buy plant-based meat alternatives (PBMAs), partly because they think these products are too expensive. We investigated whether consumers’ view that PBMAs are expensive also manifests in their numeric price estimates of PBMAs. We expected that consumers would overestimate PBMA prices due to erroneous sampling caused by a skewed price distribution and low familiarity with PBMAs. Across two studies, participants viewed pictures of conventional meat products and PBMAs, randomly sampled from online supermarkets. Participants estimated the exact price of each product. In Study 2, one group of participants additionally saw a list of reference prices as an anchor before estimating prices. We found that consumers systematically overestimated the prices of PBMAs. Providing participants with a price anchor reduced the bias. Our findings indicate that the view that PBMAs are more expensive than conventional meat may result from a biased internal reference price for PBMAs, due to erroneous sampling. To potentially help overcome the price bias for PBMAs, retailers could provide reference prices of equivalent meat products at the point of sale.