'Meat your Persona': the LEAP kiosk in the Westgate Shopping Centre, Oxford

Meating your persona at Westgate shopping centre, Oxford

Date posted: 05 August 2019

Back in June the Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP) team set up in the Westgate shopping centre, Oxford, in order to find ways to interest shoppers in the health and environmental impact of eating meat and we wanted to learn from the public in turn about their meat consumption.

They knew from research commissioned by the Eating Better Foundation in 2017 that 72% of the UK’s population doesn’t agree that eating meat has a significant impact on the environment - so they were keen to help start this national conversation and raise people’s awareness about the impact of our food choices. 

Interestingly the researchers had fascinating conversations with a wide variety of people from local beef farmers to curious teenagers to concerned grandparents. They were encouraged to think about how barriers to reducing meat eating changed within different cultures with a Vietnamese woman explaining how it was not uncommon to eat insects, while a visitor from Hong Kong told them about the difficulties of trying to reduce meat when her grandparents cooked her a traditional feast.