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Multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the agri-food sector are continuously transforming their global value chains (GVCs) to address sustainable development challenges of food security (SDG2) and climate change (SDG13). However, the central role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in (re)creating GVCs across multilevel stakeholders through innovative approaches to solve sustainability challenges remains under investigated. This explorative study investigates how international NGOs influence the transformation of large-scale industrial animal agriculture to a more sustainable (cell-based) agri-food GVC. The authors conducted a case study on the Good Food Institute (GFI), an international NGO, that has been an active player in the transition to alternative sources of protein to solve animal-based agriculture sustainability issues. The results show that an international NGO can contribute to the transition to a more sustainable GVC and can enhance the GVC’s innovation capabilities.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate consumers' reactions to a new kind of green food product that is the so-called lab-grown meat (LGM). This kind of meat does not derive from animal or vegetal cultures but is produced on the basis of “tissue-engineering” technologies, by injecting muscle tissue from an animal into a cell culture, allowing cells to “grow” outside the animal's body. By considering the similar nutritional characteristics of traditional types of meat, and the potential in terms of sustainability, the authors investigate the effect of the advertising, communication focus promoting LGM-based meat, on consumers' willingness to buy (WTB) and word-of-mouth (WOM), by shedding light on the moderator role of consumers' environmentalism and status consumption orientation tendency in influencing such relationship.

Through an exploratory research design, the authors conducted a study based on a two-cell experiment that manipulated the advertising communication focus by using a hamburger made of synthetic meat related to a fictitious brand called “Gnam”, to manipulate the advertising communication focus (sustainability vs. taste), then evaluating consumers' WTB, WOM, environmentalism and status consumption orientation.

Results show that the communication focus (sustainability vs. taste) exerts a positive effect on consumers' WTB and WOM, and how such effect is magnified both by consumers' environmentalism and status consumption orientation, in the attempt to show other a green status and their green consumption tendency.

Despite the promising results, the study does not consider other consumers' individual differences, i.e. as for the role of age, or cultural differences.

Practically, this study suggests marketers and managers how to design effective marketing campaigns to incentivise LGM-based food products purchase, and promote positive WOM, on the basis of certain consumers' individual differences useful to segment their clientele in terms of environmentalism, and status consumption orientation tendency.

Socially, this study may contribute to incentivising the use of alternative forms of meat as a food product not deriving from animal or vegetal culture, coherently with recent sustainability worldwide claimed goals.

This is the first paper to investigate consumers' reactions to LGM-based food products, by shedding light on the fundamental role of consumers' individual differences.

This paper adopts a sensemaking lens to explore the process of entrepreneurship-driven organizational transformation for sustainability.

Analysis is based on an in-depth case study of a large European meat company. Sensemaking by top and middle managers is analyzed over the period of 18 months.

The findings show how, over time, bidirectional sensemaking, that is, sensemaking for and of sustainability-oriented entrepreneurship, directed and accelerated organizational transformation for sustainability. The case company transformed with regard to organizational strategy, structure, operations and identity. The process revealed temporally different involvement of top and middle managers in sensemaking.

This paper offers unique insights into fast and emergent sustainability-oriented change in an established organization within a highly topical context. The results highlight how continuous and increasingly shared sensemaking can help top and middle managers navigate organizational change for sustainability in dynamic environments over time.

The purpose of this paper, applying concepts in the plant-based food sector, is a focus on the competitive rival trap for startup firms, with their initial advantage for under-served market segments, only to be overtaken by scale, speed, and brands of incumbent brand firms. As a case study of industry transformation, the food production sector illustrates how organizational innovation brings new forms of rivalry, from the farm gate to the kitchen plate. As a result, startups face a rivalry trap, if unable to scale quickly, as incumbents reframe their strategic response with startup acquisitions, corporate incubators or alliance partnerships consumer demand.

This paper outlines the features of precision agriculture, a new paradigm for agriculture and food production, requiring new competences and skillsets in the protein revolution, including issues like virus, bacteria and the molecular structure of food groups, animal breeding and veterinary medicine. Plant-based foods is used as a case study for startups and the rivalry trap.

The emergence of plant-based foods is a case study of market opportunity and creative destruction, where the potential market varies from $25bn to $72bn, and growing faster in the dairy sector. However, food incumbents bring new strategic responses and a rivalry trap, where startups must gain scale quickly in capabilities, talent and marketing prowess, often exploiting demand in market niches unimpeded by incumbent rivals.

Startups in biological sciences face massive challenges to increase scale and scope, even with unique intellectual property.

Startup firms need multidisciplinary management teams with a global outlook.

Plant-based foods form part of the protein revolution but face challenges of scale, cost competitiveness and taste, despite advantages for climate mitigation.

The impact of technological and science applications has blurred the traditional concept of industry boundary, with huge variations in the intangible knowledge component in their core activities and capabilities. Underlying variations imply that not all industries have similar supply demand conditions, with variations in input costs, capital intensity and innovation needs, with strategic implications for the rivalry trap.

The acceptance and perception of people regarding 3D bioprinted meat are considered as primary concerns but have not been widely evaluated. This study aimed to determine how biospheric, altruistic, egoistic, ecological worldviews, awareness of consequences, social norms and personal norms affect the consumption intention of 3D bioprinted meat as a future food source.

The values-beliefs-norms theory grounded this study. An online survey was conducted with 600 valid respondents for analysis utilizing the structural equation modeling method.

It was found that the ecological worldview had the highest significance, and biospheric and egoistic values positively impacted individuals’ ecological worldview. The awareness of consequences and social norms was also seen to directly influence personal norms, leading to consumption intention. However, it was determined that altruistic values toward an ecological worldview had no significant effect, as an individual's moral values are not affected by other people's well-being.

This study was able to assess and discover the positive consumption intention among Filipinos, highlighting societal norms and pro-environmental behavior. The findings may help manufacturers market 3D bioprinted meat effectively and aid studies on environmentalism, social movements and consumer behavior, leading to acceptance of the development and proliferation of cultured meats.

There have been no studies on cultured meats such as 3D bioprinted meat in the Philippines. The current study was able to fully assess the pro-environmental behavior among Filipinos and intention for 3D bioprinted meat against the generic behavioral assessment among related studies. Comparison was presented based on the findings.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the current literature on consumer acceptance of cultured meat and to investigate the main factors that might affect it.

Data were collected from a sample of 490 consumers in Italy, using a web-based survey. The empirical analysis follows an exploratory approach based on the training and checking of a random forest model.

An important finding of this study concerns the overall positive perception of cultured meat on the part of the interviewees in a country that is the fifth-largest meat producer at the European level. Age, environmental and ethical issues, and scepticism about new food technologies are the most important factors that guide consumer acceptance of cultured meat. The results suggest that in order to increase cultured meat acceptance it would be important to inform and educate consumers towards new food and new food production methods.

The sample analysed in this study is not representative of the whole national population, as it happens in most papers dealing with new food.

Although the conclusions of this exploratory study cannot be over-generalized, the results provide interesting insights on how to increase cultured meat acceptance in view of the possible development of a new market for cultured meat.

In a sector that needs to satisfy a fast-increasing population, advancements like cultivated meat and bio-circular economy are basic to sustain the industry and the society. As innovations are key for economic and social progress, it is crucial to understand consumers' position on this matter.

Based on text data mining, 7,030 tweets were collected and organised into 14 different food-related topics. Of the total, 6 of these categories were positive, 5 were negative and 3 were neutral.

In total, 6 categories related to food technologies were positively perceived by Twitter users, such as innovative solutions and sustainable agriculture, while 5 like the virtual dimensions of the industry or crisis-related scenarios were negatively perceived. It is remarkable that 3 categories had a neutral sentiment, which gives ground to improvement before consumers have a negative opinion and consequently will be more complicated to change their minds.

Technological innovations are becoming predominant in the food industry. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has made the sector improve even faster. Traditional methods needed to be substituted and technologies such as robots, artificial intelligence, blockchain and genetics are here to stay.