Despite environmental promise, insect-based foods remain a niche as taste, price, and tradition keep meat and plant-based options on top. Can bugs ever break through to the mainstream?
Review: Beyond the buzz: insect-based foods are unlikely to significantly reduce meat consumption. Image Credit: Charoen Krung Photography / Shutterstock
In a recent review published in the journal npj Sustainable Agriculture, a group of authors determined whether insect-derived protein products can realistically replace conventional meat in everyday Western diets.
Background
Would you swap your burger for bugs? As the environmental impact of livestock farming grows, with meat consumption predicted to be responsible for 37% of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions permissible under a 2°C climate target by 2030, pressure to curb meat intake is rising. Insects promise high protein with a lighter environmental footprint, attracting startup funding and policy enthusiasm. Y
et acceptance across Europe and North America rarely exceeds 30% of consumers, and most would pay less, not more, for insect products. Environmental campaigns alone have not changed taste-driven habits grounded in culture, price, and convenience.
Further research is needed to clarify whether insects can overcome these still truly complex social and market obstacles.
Drivers of Meat Demand
Taste, tradition, and perceived health status keep steak at the center of many plates. Mouth-coating fats deliver a savory punch that insect flours struggle to mimic. Meat also signals prosperity and family identity at barbecues, holiday feasts, and business dinners. Price drives choices as well; powerful lobbying and scale efficiencies keep beef and poultry inexpensive relative to novel proteins.
In the EU, for instance, livestock farmers have received 1200 times more public funding than alternative protein groups, and lobbying from the meat industry has even influenced reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Convenience matters, too: supermarkets, fast-food chains, and meal-kit apps place animal products within easy reach, while insects remain online novelties or limited-edition snacks. Any alternative must satisfy this sensory, cultural, and economic bundle to win repeat purchases.
Online delivery widens the gap: a single tap summons chicken wings, while insect products often require specialty websites and week-long shipping, eroding instant-gratification expectations.
Psychological Roadblocks
Surveys conducted across the United States (US), Germany, the United Kingdom (UK), and Italy reveal that fewer than 30% of adults would consider trying insect dishes, and even fewer would serve them at home. Disgust (a protective emotion linked to disease avoidance) surfaces when people picture antennae or feel the sensation of crunchy legs.
In Western cultures, insects are often associated with disease, dirt, and decay, and their consumption is sometimes perceived as a marker of a “primitive” lifestyle. This is compounded by the potential use of food scraps as insect feed, a practice that Western consumers may not be receptive to.
Food neophobia, the reluctance to taste unfamiliar items, amplifies this reaction, especially in older consumers. Social cues deepen the gap: Western media frame insect eating as a reality-show stunt, and dinner companions signal hesitancy with a single eyebrow raise.
These intangible forces create a wall higher than any nutritional chart can climb. Children form taste memories early, and schools rarely feature insect dishes, so generational turnover alone cannot guarantee acceptance within crucial climate timelines.
Overview of factors required to switch from conventional meat to insect-based meat substitutes.
Limited Success of Acceptance Campaigns
Entrepreneurs grind crickets into powders and bake them into protein bars, hoping invisibility will bypass disgust. While the tactic lifts willingness to sample, it rarely sustains weekly demand. Crucially, approximately 90% of the current insect-based food market consists of products, such as snacks, pasta, or bars, that do not directly compete with meat.
Shoppers still compare the bar to a plant-based counterpart that is cheaper, sweeter, and free of crunch memories. Since insects generally have a higher environmental impact than plants, incorporating them into these items is likely detrimental from a sustainability perspective.
Eco-labels touting lower GHG emissions add marginal appeal, but everyday eaters prioritize taste and habit over distant climate metrics.
Educational tastings at museums generate social-media buzz yet falter at the checkout line; repeated exposure helps some adventurous groups, but scaling that immersive experience to millions would drain marketing budgets faster than venture capital arrives.
Structural and Economic Hurdles
Scarce shelf space compounds the mindset problem. Few large grocers allocate chilled sections to insect analogues, so interested consumers cannot build a reliable routine.
Production costs remain high because farms must maintain strict daily temperature and humidity controls, as well as feed controls, to prevent pathogens, which contrasts with soybeans that grow in open fields.
Investment patterns reinforce these challenges: in 2022, the vast majority of funding for insect farming, approximately 95%, or 1.2 billion USD, was directed toward animal feed and pet food, with less than 1% supporting insect-based products for human consumption.
Regulators add another layer, as the European Union (EU) now allows specific species in baked goods and pasta, but novel food approvals remain slow, and labeling disputes over words like "burger" or "sausage" mirror earlier battles faced by oat and almond beverages.
Competition From Plant-based Front-Runners
Plant-based meat alternatives such as soy or pea burgers already occupy mainstream menus, from Burger King to grocery freezer aisles, and taste tests show steady improvements in juiciness and grill marks. Their environmental profiles surpass those of poultry and rival insect protein, while avoiding perceived health risks such as allergy concerns and visual stigma.
Crucially, supply chains for legumes have enjoyed decades of agronomic optimization, allowing unit costs to decrease. As a result, shoppers seeking lower-impact proteins can satisfy ethical goals without confronting bug-related unease.
If insects cannot deliver a clear sensory or price advantage, they risk fragmenting attention and investment that could accelerate broader dietary shifts toward plants.
Research Gaps and Future Questions
Existing studies focus heavily on hypothetical willingness to try insects rather than real cash transactions. Few studies track long-term consumption patterns or examine how community identity shapes food loyalty.
Sensory science must still decode how to replicate the Maillard-rich (the chemical reaction responsible for browning and flavor) aroma of seared meat using insect oils or pastes, and economists need transparent cost curves from pilot to industrial scale.
Comparative life-cycle assessments should include realistic scenarios where insects replace plant snacks, not beef steaks, to gauge net climate outcomes.
Finally, sociologists could explore whether targeted niches such as high-protein sports powders or emergency rations offer footholds that do not compete head-on with beloved comfort foods.
Conclusions
Current evidence shows that insect-based foods must overcome significant barriers before they can reduce meat consumption. They currently fall short in terms of taste familiarity, price, availability, and social acceptance, while competing directly with increasingly popular plant-derived substitutes.
Investment patterns, regulatory caution, and consumer psychology all reinforce a cycle of limited scale. Because plant-based alternatives are more advanced and accepted, insects risk diverting resources away from more effective climate solutions. Unless future research uncovers niche uses that deliver clear sensory or economic gains, insects may remain peripheral in Western diets.
Policymakers and entrepreneurs may therefore achieve faster climate and health benefits by prioritizing plant-based innovation and addressing the cultural roots of meat attachment, while longitudinal trials could test targeted interventions.
Journal reference:
- Biteau, C., Bry-Chevalier, T., Crummett, D. et al. Beyond the buzz: insect-based foods are unlikely to significantly reduce meat consumption. npj Sustain. Agric. (2025), DOI: 0.1038/s44264-025-00075-z, https://www.nature.com/articles/s44264-025-00075-z