Scientists are trying to determine whether labelling can trick conscientious consumers into buying the dead body parts of chickens fed with algae and insects in a bid to make farming them more sustainable. But is it yet another quick fix to get around the real issues? Claire Hamlett reports.

Trials to test out spirulina (a blue-green algae) and insects as chicken feed in place of soymeal are currently being carried out in a bid to make the poultry sector more sustainable. Because insect feed gives chicken meat a yellow tone and spirulina makes it red, researchers have set out to determine whether health and environmental labelling can help consumers overcome their rejection of these weirdly coloured bits of chicken.

As has been found with insect protein for humans - touted as a sustainable alternative to meat from mammals and birds - novel foods or types of feed for animals can induce disgust in consumers. Other research shows that these feelings can be changed by the provision of information about the environmental benefits of insect protein. Applying this idea to spirulina- and insect-fed chicken meat, a new study by researchers from Germany and Canada has found that “environmentally conscious consumers” can be won over when provided with positive environmental and nutrition information about the meat, such as that it is high in omega-3 and reduces the amount of land needed for producing animal feed, as well as an explanation of how the feed type changes the appearance and taste of the meat. But people who were not interested in sustainability were not persuaded to buy the chicken when they were told the odd colouring was down to the alternative feeds.

“The findings show that providing information is a double-edged sword,” said study co-author Sven Anders. “It can cause mainstream western consumers to react with disgust around insect- or algae-derived foods.” Nonetheless, he thinks that “Producers need to get the labelling sorted out as these feeds are developed. If you want consumers to believe in these alternative products, you have to educate them about it, then they can decide - and hopefully we can overcome their rejection.”

There is a lot about this study that’s troubling. One is that environmentally-minded people would be convinced to buy industrially produced chicken meat just because the stuff it was fed with is less bad for the planet than soymeal. Because it is mainly intensive farms that would make use of these feed alternatives. The type of feed will do nothing to improve the miserable lives of the chickens, reduce the significant pollution created by intensive farms from the animals’ waste or stop the farms being breeding grounds for various strains of avian flu.

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Another issue it raises is that such meat could be labelled as environmental at all, especially when it is not being compared to genuinely sustainable alternatives like plant-based food. The study used a German eco-label called ProPlanet - which “identifies ecological and socially desirable production practices of grocery products exclusively sold by the German retailer REWE Group” - on the chicken meat as a way to test the reactions of the study’s participants.

Without any regulations around sustainability claims made for food products in the EU, the meat industry can clearly take advantage to make its products seem more sustainable than they really are, reassuring those “environmentally conscious consumers” in the way animal welfare labels give false comfort to those who want animals to be treated well. It’s also concerning that academic researchers are producing studies like this one which can help entrench intensive animal farming in the face of clear scientific evidence that big reductions in meat consumption are necessary to protect nature, the climate, and animal welfare.

These efforts to normalise the use of farmed insects for animal feed or as an alternative protein for direct human consumption are also worrying. Often insect protein is described only in terms of its sustainability, but rarely is their potential sentience mentioned, nor the fact that the sustainability of farming insects for food rests on it being compared to animal farming rather than growing plants for human consumption.

If researchers truly want to help improve consumer acceptance of sustainable foods, they would do better by spending their time focused on how to get plant-based diets to go more mainstream.

Claire Hamlett is a freelance journalist, writer and regular contributor at Surge. Based in Oxford, UK, Claire tells stories that challenge systemic exploitation of and disregard for animals and the environment and that point to a better way of doing things.

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