Battle Brewing Over ‘Clean Meat’ Labeling

Memphis Meat, for example, reported last year that a pound of clean meat costs $2,400 to produce. This, however, is compared to an estimated $18,000 in 2016 and $325,000 in 2013. As technology advances and production scales up, costs are expected to fall. Netherlands-based MosaMeat predicts its clean beef could eventually cost a competitive $3.60 per pound.

While the timeline for commercial viability of clean meat remains unknown, many estimates place market introduction to be within the next three to five years, with widespread supermarket adoption within the following two or three years.

Challenges to Clean Meat

In addition to cost, there remains the challenge of consumer perception. In 2014, 80 percent of Americans said they would not eat meat that was grown in a lab, according to a Pew Research Center survey. Sentiments are changing. A separate 2016 survey found only about 20 percent of Americans were unwilling to try cultured meat, with two-thirds willing to try it and one-third willing to consume it regularly. Potential barriers were identified as taste/product appeal (79 percent), ethical concerns (involving high-tech genetics, 24 percent), and price (20 percent).

Much of the perception issue involves marketing, namely what the product will be called. Supporters prefer positive-sounding terminology, such as “clean meat,” while opponents tend to characterize it as “in-vitro meat,” “lab-grown meat,” or, as the Cattlemen’s Association puts it, meat “grown in a petri dish.”

Clean meat is similar to “clean energy” by communicating important aspects of the technology, “both the environmental benefits and the decrease in foodborne pathogens and drug residues,” says Bruce Friedrich, cofounder and executive director of the Good Food Institute.

“It is no more accurate to say that clean meat is ‘lab grown’ than it is to say that Cheerios and commercial peanut butter are ‘lab created,’” Friedrich says. “All processed foods start in a food laboratory, of course, but with clean meat, the end result is real, pure meat.”