Three-quarters of alternative protein companies prefer the name cultivated meat over other industry terms like cultured or lab-grown, according to a recently released survey from the Good Food Institute (GFI).
“In September 2021, we polled company CEOs on their preferences and found a significant shift, with 75% of the 44 companies that replied preferring cultivated. Cultured meat comes in second at 20%, and everything else trails by quite a lot. One of the previous favorites, cell-based, is preferred by just one company,” GFI Founder and CEO Bruce Friedrich wrote in a blog post.
Cultivated meat is created with real animal cells that are grown in a stainless-steel tank known as a bioreactor, resulting in a product that resembles chicken, beef, pork and other meats.
The meat alternative isn’t available on the market yet in the U.S. – in large part due to the high cost of manufacturing -- although Eat Just Inc. received regulatory approval to sell its lab-grown chicken nuggets commercially within the city-state of Singapore in December 2020. The announcement marked the first time worldwide that cultivated meat received the green light for human consumption.
Seeking consumer acceptance
Cultivated meat is the term most likely to lead to consumer acceptance of meat manufactured from animal cells, the organization said. There is a growing interest in and openness in trying cultivated meat among consumers, however the meat alternative is still overwhelmingly perceived as unnatural compared to plant-based and traditional animal proteins.
“Cultivated meat is a bit friendlier, foodier, translates into some of our key European languages and signals a bit more of the caring/precarious process needed to keep cells happy,” Tim van de Rijdt, chief business officer at Mosa Meat and president of Cellular Agriculture Europe, says in a quote on the blog.
Cultivated meat has gone through several names throughout the years. Initially, the meat alternative was known as “clean meat.” Other popular alternatives were “lab-grown” and “cultured” meat, which were ultimately disregarded because they made the meat alternative sound like a science experiment.
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