Bovaer Butter Spreading Nightmare – the new human acceptance challenge

Last year, Arla Foods announced that 30 of its dairy farms across the UK would test the ‘Bovaer’ DSM-Firmenich additive. Arla – which owns the UK’s biggest dairy cooperative, producing milk and products such as Lurpak – claims that when added in small quantities to cow feed, Bovaer can reduce cow methane emissions by between 30-45%. With European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the UK Food Standards Agency approval, all regulatory checks have been passed, but sceptics are saying the milk is ‘contaminated’ and conspiratorial links to cancer and connections to boogey-man Bill Gates have been evoked.

While the allegations are untrue, and the product has been rigorously tested, the public backlash is the latest case of ‘experts’ neglecting that human acceptance is king when a new technology is introduced.

The hostile reaction to Bovaer sits in a long line of lessons not learned about our human need for control when a new technology is introduced. Whilst social media does have a part to play in the rise of reactionary behaviour and conspiracy theories, it is lazy thinking to simply blame ‘the internet’.

The response from supporters of the technology suggests a chronic lack of human understanding, experts dismissing real concerns that range from cancer to fertility, through unempathetic, technical explanations. There’s only one way that ends – opponents double down.

The stumbling block is what River Effra calls Technically Correct bias. Let me explain.

When it comes to risk, human beings make decisions based on their understanding and perceived control of the outcome. For example, some people are concerned about plane and train crashes, and they can significantly damage our confidence in those industries. Yet, if we drive to the train station, or the airport, we are willingly taking a significantly greater risk with our lives. Why? CONTROL – when we’re the driver we’re in control of our own risk and this is the same for our food habits.

In developing this new technology, Bovaer, the developer and wider industry have invested massive amounts of time, money, research and development in this idea, they have jumped through hoops in what they see as ‘tests to destruction’ by regulatory and approval authorities. But turning it into a reality has been their greatest challenge to date, with calls for a boycott of their products and claims they are trying to re-engineer cows.

So where do they go from here? Arla Foods will have to accept that being ‘right’ doesn’t always work. You can’t choose to fight an emotional fire with a fact fuelled extinguisher. This is a classic example of Technically Correct bias: ‘We are technically right with our facts, so we must be right’. And so, they follow a course of attempting to show they are even more right, with even more facts. By overplaying this bias, they are deaf to their customers’ perceived lack of control, and all the audience hears is, ‘The experts don’t understand our concerns, they think we are stupid’. I am yet to meet a single person who has ever had their mind changed by someone shouting increasingly loudly about how right they are, and how wrong you must be.

In this instance, what needs to be addressed is the individual’s rational emotional response to a felt loss of control when it comes to the introduction of a new technology. Specifically, scientists and technologists introducing something new into the food chain. That means really thinking about human acceptance of a new technology and giving serious and respectful consideration to others’ concerns and then engaging in a meaningful dialogue with customers. 

It can be done differently. In the early days of mass aviation, the industry successfully persuaded consumers of the inherent safety of air travel. Change can be scary. Technological change that we don’t understand, or control, can be even more scary. Fear is a predictable, rational, emotional, and truly human response. If we want human acceptance for a new technology, we need to understand people’s fear, anticipate it, and work with it. If we dismiss it, then the seed of conspiracy and challenge will grow.  

Thank you for reading. For more insights please visit our blogs directory and insights page.