“I’m not sure I buy the fourth point—while there will be some competition between plant-based and cell-based meat, they also both compete with the currently much larger traditional meat market, and I think there are some consumers who would eat plant-based but not cell-based and vice versa.”
How confident are you in your reasoning here?
What kind of empirical evidence do you think would disprove/prove this argument?
The evidence I’ve seen (Source) suggests that consumers are largely confused about the difference between cell-based and lab-based meats, which doesn’t help sales of either. Also, cell-based meats are currently HORRIBLE for animal rights given the amount of suffering they cause to cow fetuses (Source). If consumers started conflating the issues with cell-based meats and plant-based meats, it would be a large setback to the industry. And given how largely the traditional dairy market has been lobbying against plant-based milks (Source), I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that they might intentionally blur the lines between cell-based and plant-based meats to find whatever arguments they can against alternative meats.
“I’m not sure I buy the fourth point—while there will be some competition between plant-based and cell-based meat, they also both compete with the currently much larger traditional meat market, and I think there are some consumers who would eat plant-based but not cell-based and vice versa.”
How confident are you in your reasoning here?
What kind of empirical evidence do you think would disprove/prove this argument?
The evidence I’ve seen (Source) suggests that consumers are largely confused about the difference between cell-based and lab-based meats, which doesn’t help sales of either. Also, cell-based meats are currently HORRIBLE for animal rights given the amount of suffering they cause to cow fetuses (Source). If consumers started conflating the issues with cell-based meats and plant-based meats, it would be a large setback to the industry. And given how largely the traditional dairy market has been lobbying against plant-based milks (Source), I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that they might intentionally blur the lines between cell-based and plant-based meats to find whatever arguments they can against alternative meats.