As the laboratory-grown meat industry continues to get off the ground, most U.S. consumers appear to be apprehensive about eating it.
Revealing the results of a recent meat and protein food survey at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit on May 3 in Arlington, Virginia, Mark Gale, partner and CEO of Charleston|Orwig, showed not only that most respondents are unwilling to adopt such a product into their diets, but also why they had those attitudes.
Charleston|Orwig surveyed 500 people from across America, and of those surveyed, only three percent of respondents said they would eat cell-cultured foods, also known as lab-grown meat, without any trepidation.
The survey also revealed that 57 percent would refuse to eat it, 16 percent would maybe try it, while the remaining 24 percent have never even heard of laboratory-grown meat.
Reasons people are rejecting lab-grown meat
Consumers surveyed were also asked why they were not interested in consuming laboratory-grown meat. The reasons, and the percentage of respondents who identified that as a reason, were:
- I don’t trust it – 52.1 percent
- It’s not natural – 43.8 percent
- It doesn’t seem healthy – 37.7 percent
- Lab-grown meats hurt farmers who grow animals – 36.5 percent
- I don’t know how it’s made – 35.7 percent
- I worry about taste and texture – 29.2 percent
Gale indicated people in attendance should be encouraged by one of those stats in general – that nearly 37 percent of people “were sophisticated enough” to say that lab-grown meat may not be good for farmers.
“It’s not farmers we’re surveying. These are people in the city that are saying ‘that might not be good for animal agriculture.’ I thought that was pretty interesting.”
The people interviewed as part of the survey, Gale revealed, were aged 18-65. The survey was slightly skewed toward women, he added.