The global food system is undergoing profound transformation driven by growing concerns about climate change, biodiversity loss, animal welfare, public health, and the long-term sustainability of livestock-based production models. Against this backdrop, alternative proteins, including cultured meat, plant-based meat analogues, insect-based products and novel dairy substitutes, have emerged as promising pathways for addressing environmental pressures while meeting evolving consumer expectations for ethical, healthy and sustainable diets. Although consumer research on these products has expanded rapidly, a comprehensive understanding of how alternative proteins reshape the broader agrifood system remains limited. Existing studies often address consumption, production, regulation, and socio-cultural dynamics in isolation, leaving significant knowledge gaps regarding value-chain restructuring, producer adoption, economic feasibility, and governance.

This Special Issue invites contributions exploring the rapidly evolving landscape of alternative protein-rich food systems, including cultured meat, plant-based meat analogues, insect-based foods, and alternative dairy products, within the broader contexts of animal welfare, sustainability, production systems, and socio-cultural adoption. In addition to the substantial body of consumer research in this area, this Special Issue seeks to broaden the analytical lens to encompass upstream and system-level perspectives. The way in which individuals and the system interact in practice remains insufficiently understood. We therefore invite studies that address the central question: How can system- and individual-level perspectives be integrated?

Contributions may examine how production systems for cultured meat or insect farming align with animal-welfare standards; how farmers and agribusinesses evaluate and manage the economic feasibility of shifting to new forms of protein production; how certification, labelling, and regulatory regimes enable or constrain market access; and how consumers' willingness to pay and trust dynamics interact with supply-chain development and broader food-system transitions. The overarching goal is to gain more insights in the dynamics of individual versus system-level transitions, and thereby bring together interdisciplinary research that connects consumption and production with governance, economic incentives, ethics, and sustainability, thereby advancing a more holistic understanding of the pathways, trade-offs and system-wide consequences associated with emerging alternative-protein futures.

All invited contributions should reflect on the main question from different perspectives and include a detailed policy section, as this is identified as an often neglected area and is especially relevant in the context of individual and system-level transitions.

The Special Issue reflects on topical issues of individual-level versus system-level dynamics from a wide range of perspectives. By inviting a broad range of perspectives on a shared question, the aim is to gain deeper insights into this challenging area and clarify how individual decision-making can be conceptually linked to system-level dynamics such as regulations, policies and social norms, and how these interactions can be leveraged to accelerate the protein transition.

The Special Issue encourages contributions that examine both the demand side (e.g., consumer acceptance, preferences, willingness to pay) and the supply side (e.g., production decisions, farm-level constraints, cost structures, supply-chain coordination). This will support a more complete understanding of how alternative proteins are produced, marketed, and adopted in practice.

The Issue will support empirical and theoretical work assessing how alternative-protein technologies and new value-chain configurations affect environmental footprints, land use, resource efficiency, biodiversity, and animal welfare, including assessments that compare conventional and emerging production models.

The Issue aims to examine how regulatory frameworks, certification and labeling regimes, governance structures, cultural narratives, and stakeholder values enable or constrain transitions toward alternative-protein systems.

We encourage contributions analysing cost structures, scalability, investment incentives, price and market formation, supply-chain coordination, and producer decision-making as alternative proteins expand.

The Issue welcomes robust methodological diversity, including discrete-choice experiments, mixed-methods studies, socio-economic modelling, comparative case studies, life-cycle and material-flow analyses, longitudinal adoption studies, and policy and stakeholder analysis, particularly in under-researched regions and production contexts.

The Issue will offer evidence to guide policy-makers, agrifood industry stakeholders, producer organisations and civil-society actors engaged in sustainable protein transitions and animal-welfare reform through actionable insights for policy and practice.

We invite a curated collection of original empirical research, comparative analyses, conceptual and theoretical papers, systematic reviews and in-depth case studies that align with the thematic focus and reflect the interdisciplinary scope, particularly in relation to consumer choice, market and value-chain dynamics, sustainability, production systems, and food-system innovation.

Potential topics

• Consumer acceptance, preferences, and willingness to pay for alternative meats and dairy products
• Farm-level decision-making and economic feasibility of adopting alternative-protein production systems
• Sustainability, environmental and life-cycle assessments of alternative protein supply chains
• Regulatory frameworks, certification, labelling, and standards for emerging protein products
• Cultural, ethical, and societal narratives shaping acceptance and legitimacy
• Communication, trust-building, and transparency strategies across the supply chain

Timeline

• November 30, 2026: Closing date for manuscript submissions