A number of new policies and food technology businesses concerned with alleviating animal suffering and/or the environmental impacts of animal agriculture have arisen in recent decades. We study whether there is evidence that consumer behavior is changing in parallel, by examining real grocery purchases matched with machine-scanned label data. We find that meat consumption has been at its highest in recent years, consistent with prior observations, but we offer the first observational evidence that a growing share of the population is purchasing fewer or no meat items and other animal products. While some of this trend can be explained by changes in the volume of grocery purchases, we suggest that media and generational turnover are further driving this trend. We finally discuss the plausible effects of meat alternatives, finding that they cannot have been a primary driver of this trend and have an unclear effect on meat and animal product consumption.

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Dr. Zach Freitas-Groff is a Research Associate of the Population Wellbeing Initiative, a joint project at the University of Texas, Austin of the Population Research Center and the Economics Department. He is an economist with interests in public, political, and behavioral economics. His research focuses on the long-term consequences of policymaking and the economics of animal welfare. Additionally, as a Senior Programme Associate at Longview Philanthropy, Dr. Freitas-Groff conducts grant investigations in artificial intelligence (AI). He completed his PhD in economics at Stanford University, where he received support from the National Science Foundation, the Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research, and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Zach has conducted research covered by The New York Times, Reuters, Marginal Revolution, and, most importantly, Saturday Night Live. Before that, he was a Research Analyst at Innovations for Poverty Action and the Global Poverty Research Lab at Northwestern University.

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