Milk from gene-edited dairy cattle gains traction with New Zealand consumers mainly when it is priced below standard milk and tied to benefits that shoppers understand at once, according to research published in the journal Future Foods. Damien Mather and Kara Xiaohui Ma, of the University of Otago’s Department of Marketing, and Götz Laible, of the University of Auckland’s Department of Molecular Medicine and Pathology, tested consumer responses to ‘Climate Smart’ (CS) milk against standard and organic products.

The authors summarise the outcome: “The results indicate that standard milk remains the most preferred, and New Zealand consumers only consider CS milk as an option when there is a price advantage.”

Implications for manufacturers

The findings place pricing and communication alongside the underlying technology as determinants of market entry. The authors note in their Conclusion: “From a practical perspective, the study suggests that successful market introduction of gene-edited dairy products will depend not only on technological advancements but also on strategic pricing and effective communication.” They add that positioning such products around direct consumer benefits, rather than technical processes, may help reduce resistance and improve acceptance.

The work speaks to investment decisions. “Developing gene-edited livestock is resource-intensive and costly, and without evidence of potential market demand, significant investments could be wasted on technologies that may not diffuse effectively,” the authors write. In their view, consumer acceptance data “can serve as a strategic tool for guiding investment in climate-smart innovations”. The study was funded by AgResearch, CRV Ltd., Livestock Improvement Corporation and New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

Experimental design

The authors define CS milk as milk derived from dairy cattle genetically engineered to enhance climate resilience and environmental sustainability. They chose the ‘climate-smart’ label deliberately, because it lets consumers grasp the environmental and welfare benefits of gene-edited cattle, which might otherwise be too technical or difficult to understand.

Participants were drawn from Dynata’s nationally representative consumer panel and screened to confirm they had bought milk in the previous three months. A total of 1096 respondents completed 12 choice tasks, each showing five alternatives and asking them to select both the most and least preferred option. The design covered five milk types: standard, organic, CS milk, allergy-free CS milk, and allergy-free CS milk with COVID-19 protection. Each type was offered at three price levels, 15% below, at and 15% above a base price, giving 15 unique alternatives. A nearly balanced incomplete block design controlled for position and order effects. A table explaining each attribute was provided before the tasks.

Standard milk and the three CS variants shared a base price of NZ$1.75 per litre (NZ$2.00 is about €1.00), while organic milk was set at NZ$4.2 per litre to reflect observed retail prices. The authors priced CS milk in line with standard milk on the expectation that CS cows cost less to keep and raise per kilogram of milk. They acknowledge that this is “a forward-looking and exploratory scenario” and that such pricing “may not fully represent current market conditions”. Holding price constant across the CS variants isolated preferences for the attributes themselves. The allergy-free variant is produced by gene editing, while the COVID-19 variant combines gene editing with GM-derived functional proteins.

Standard milk keeps its lead

A multinomial logit model returned coefficients that were statistically significant at the 5% level for every alternative. Standard milk was the most preferred at all price points, which the authors attribute to its familiarity and established market presence. Organic milk showed a negative preference throughout, with its lowest coefficient (−0.995) at NZ$4.80 per litre. CS milk recorded its strongest preference at 15% below the average price (0.337), falling to −0.108 at the average and −0.295 at 15% above.

The authors place their results alongside earlier work:
“Overall, our findings indicate that standard milk consistently dominates consumer choice, which aligns with previous studies that found gene-edited milk is discounted relative to conventional milk. This finding is not surprising, as general consumers tend to have higher trust in familiar products, such as standard milk, and are often hesitant toward novel food technologies, driven by unnaturalness, risk, and lack of trust.” They also draw a more positive reading from the price response of CS milk. “This indicates that consumer acceptance of gene-edited milk is conditional rather than fixed and can be significantly improved through competitive pricing,” they write.

Market share simulations

The team converted the coefficients into predicted market shares under full-availability assumptions. With all products at the average price, standard milk took 52%, CS milk 27% and organic milk 21%. Pricing CS milk 15% below average lifted its share to 36%, while standard milk fell to 45% and organic milk to 18%. At 15% above average, CS milk dropped to 23%.