Glynn Tonsor: Hi Lori, thanks for your message and inquiry here; I have a couple of broad reactions.

I would concur that modern consumers must trust an industry and have confidence that their purchases align with their personal views and values – they simply have more choices than ever before and will take their money elsewhere if so compelled. I think this applies to the U.S. meat industry, an area that I regularly and deeply assess, and I’ll try to provide some concrete, demonstrative examples. That said, “trust” is not cleanly and regularly observed but I do believe there are informative, indirect observations that are useful to highlight as shared below.

Let’s first consider beef – there is ample evidence that beef demand in the U.S. has been strong over the past couple of years. That is, retail beef prices consumers have been willing to pay have exceeded what economists may have otherwise expected (given volume available), signaling the public values beef more today than in the past (see this “Drive” article for more if desired). While this academic can get geeky and, in the weeds, this outcome almost assuredly signals the public has trust in the beef-cattle industry.

Now let’s zoom out and take a broader, multi-species meat-protein look at what drives purchasing decisions. The Meat Demand Monitor (MDM), a Kansas State University-based project co-supported by the beef and pork checkoff programs, regularly publishes a series called “Protein Values” (the August 2025 figures and base report is here). This Protein Value series reflects what is most- and least-important to consumers in their protein purchasing decisions (forced rank MDM approach is of note). The MDM routinely identifies for the majority of U.S. residents that Taste and Freshness are much more prevalent as key purchasing considerations than Environmental Impact, Origin/Traceability, Animal Welfare, and Hormone/Antibiotic-Free. This is important here as this relative importance order likely only occurs due to persistent trust in the U.S. meat industry. Stated differently, if there were less public trust, we likely would see comparatively higher importance placed on Environmental Impact, Origin/Traceability, Animal Welfare, or Hormone/Antibiotic-Free considerations. Finally, I will highlight a piece I co-authored in 2022 with Dr. Jayson Lusk: “U.S. Perspective: Meat Demand outdoes Meat Avoidance.” Our article title is telling – there is a long-standing pattern of total meat consumption growing in the U.S. We further use MDM data to document that only a minority of U.S. residents self-declare as Vegan or Vegetarian – in fact, this share has been declining over the past couple years in MDM data. The point here is the U.S. public almost certainly holds trust in the industry, or we would see different per capita consumption, per household expenditure, and self-declared diet patterns!

GT: Interesting insights indeed Lori. To your point on generational differences, we periodically do deeper assessments in base MDM reports. For instance, in the August 2024 report we include a figure of how Protein Values vary by generation. While Taste indeed is king for all generations, a key here is relative differences in protein purchasing decision factors. Narrowly, Millennials are much more likely to place “even” weight on production practice factors (hormone/antibiotic-free, animal welfare, etc.) as Taste than older generations (Baby Boomer & Gen X here). Stated differently, Baby Boomer & Gen X buyers are much less willing to trade Taste (or Freshness) for an Environmental Impact or Origin/Traceability attribute or claim.

Specific to the Vegetarian/Vegan rate point, some internal assessment of MDM data several months back revealed that a sizable portion who self-declared as one earlier in the survey reported having a meat item yesterday. That is, this subset is “inconsistent” and perhaps giving a Vegan/Vegetarian diet-declaration response for altruistic or other reasons, while they earlier professed to remain active in meat purchasing. I note this, as said, inconsistency is observed at a higher rate among younger MDM respondents. By extrapolation, as this younger group gains additional purchasing power, I am increasingly optimistic their meat demand will also grow and "less will be lost" than previously thought given how predominant the Baby Boomer generation has historically been for domestic meat industries.