Interesting question, thanks for adding this! I don’t have any background in animal welfare research or the plant/cell based meat area beyond reading & chatting with people, but popped some thoughts below regardless:
My leaning would be that having both is better than just one, to provide increased choice and options to move away from traditional 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. Not only taste, look, feel, and cost are relevant but also the optics and cultural connotations of each, which are quite different.
In terms of proportion of promotion efforts to each, I’m really not sure. A strategy there should probably look at how developed each tech is (so more plant-based meat promotion earlier on), uptake rates and effect of promotion (and if there’s a ceiling hit where we struggle to get further uptake in a population, suggesting a new option is needed for those remaining), populations promoted to and their unique concerns / likelihood to uptake one or the other, and any tipping points or opposition that needs to be countered in a timely way for something to remain viable in a location or to get past legislative hurdles.
(Also sorry for the late reply! I was on vacation last week)
“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.
Interesting question, thanks for adding this! I don’t have any background in animal welfare research or the plant/cell based meat area beyond reading & chatting with people, but popped some thoughts below regardless:
My leaning would be that having both is better than just one, to provide increased choice and options to move away from traditional 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. Not only taste, look, feel, and cost are relevant but also the optics and cultural connotations of each, which are quite different.
In terms of proportion of promotion efforts to each, I’m really not sure. A strategy there should probably look at how developed each tech is (so more plant-based meat promotion earlier on), uptake rates and effect of promotion (and if there’s a ceiling hit where we struggle to get further uptake in a population, suggesting a new option is needed for those remaining), populations promoted to and their unique concerns / likelihood to uptake one or the other, and any tipping points or opposition that needs to be countered in a timely way for something to remain viable in a location or to get past legislative hurdles.
(Also sorry for the late reply! I was on vacation last week)
“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.