When you survey meat consumers, the majority of them say that they buy their meat from humane farms, when in fact of course ~95% of them are buying from massive factory farms (as that’s where ~95% of meat production comes from). So in people’s minds, they’re not switching from factory farms to cultivated meat, they’re switching from small independent farmers with great conditions to lab grown meat, which is a much less appealing jump.
I’m expecting massive food multinationals to be the ones bringing cultivated meat to market, e.g. Nestle, Unilever. And I think low-trust people will be put-off by this. I think people will want to side with the “small independent farmers” they think they are buying from.
Once headlines like these start appearing: New Nestle Lab-Meat Facility Opens, Expected to Cause Mass Unemployment For Small Farmers and Huge Profits for Corporate Multinational, I think more people still will be pushed away. Combine that with complicated and spurious health concerns, and people will stick with the default meat.
Politicians are desperate to pick up voters in rural areas, so I expect being anti-cultivated meat to become an increasingly popular political position. People who like the idea of cultivated meat won’t care enough to make it an issue they vote on, and farmers who are threatened by the technology will make it their number 1 voting issue.
I think your 10-15 year prediction is very plausible, but the year at which it arrives in supermarkets is more a technological question. I guess the question about consumer adoption is, once they arrive on supermarket shelves, what share of the entire meat industry will cultivated meat make up after 10, 20, 30, 50 years?
Do you expect most consumers to switch very quickly, within a few years to a decade, or do you think it will be a generational thing? I used to imagine people switching over incredibly quickly, but now I think generational change is much more likely.
I think you’re right about the spin—there’ll be an abundance of spin in every direction. In the end it’ll come down to consumer choice, where I expect millennial and younger gens to embrace the new products quite quickly (within a decade, yes), whilst older folks take longer to adjust. I trust that, eventually, the moral arguments will actually prevail once people no longer see ‘traditional’ farming (which, as you say, is mostly factory farming in practice) as the only option for getting meat.
When you survey meat consumers, the majority of them say that they buy their meat from humane farms, when in fact of course ~95% of them are buying from massive factory farms (as that’s where ~95% of meat production comes from). So in people’s minds, they’re not switching from factory farms to cultivated meat, they’re switching from small independent farmers with great conditions to lab grown meat, which is a much less appealing jump.
I’m expecting massive food multinationals to be the ones bringing cultivated meat to market, e.g. Nestle, Unilever. And I think low-trust people will be put-off by this. I think people will want to side with the “small independent farmers” they think they are buying from.
Once headlines like these start appearing: New Nestle Lab-Meat Facility Opens, Expected to Cause Mass Unemployment For Small Farmers and Huge Profits for Corporate Multinational, I think more people still will be pushed away. Combine that with complicated and spurious health concerns, and people will stick with the default meat.
Politicians are desperate to pick up voters in rural areas, so I expect being anti-cultivated meat to become an increasingly popular political position. People who like the idea of cultivated meat won’t care enough to make it an issue they vote on, and farmers who are threatened by the technology will make it their number 1 voting issue.
I think your 10-15 year prediction is very plausible, but the year at which it arrives in supermarkets is more a technological question. I guess the question about consumer adoption is, once they arrive on supermarket shelves, what share of the entire meat industry will cultivated meat make up after 10, 20, 30, 50 years?
Do you expect most consumers to switch very quickly, within a few years to a decade, or do you think it will be a generational thing? I used to imagine people switching over incredibly quickly, but now I think generational change is much more likely.
I think you’re right about the spin—there’ll be an abundance of spin in every direction. In the end it’ll come down to consumer choice, where I expect millennial and younger gens to embrace the new products quite quickly (within a decade, yes), whilst older folks take longer to adjust. I trust that, eventually, the moral arguments will actually prevail once people no longer see ‘traditional’ farming (which, as you say, is mostly factory farming in practice) as the only option for getting meat.
Looking forward to revisiting this post later!