Frankenfoods 2.0: Lion Burgers or Zebra Chops, Anyone?

To get consumers interested in lab-grown meat, companies are turning to products based on exotic, or even extinct, animals.

How would you feel if the “meat” on your plate wasn’t really meat at all, but was the result of genetically modified cells grown in a lab?

Goaded by juxtaposing the “climate crisis” with an ongoing, aggressive PR campaign that aims to demonize meat eating by wrongly suggesting all livestock farming contributes to excessive carbon emissions, huge amounts of money are being invested in lab-grown, or “cultured,” meat, as we reported a few months ago. Lab-grown chicken was approved for sale in the US, though it won’t be on store shelves for some time. But there’s a problem: consumers aren’t quite sold on the idea that their meat is the product of a science experiment! Polls have found that large swaths of the American public would not buy cultured meat; only about one third of respondents said they would be likely to buy artificial meat. Another poll found that under one in five US and UK consumers said they were “eager to try” lab-grown meat. Lack of consumer interest combined with a hefty price tag for lab-grown meat is not exactly a recipe for success (no pun intended!).

Some companies are attempting to generate interest in lab-grown meat by going beyond chicken and pork. Companies like Primeval Foods and Vow are developing lab-grown meat from the cells of animals like tiger, zebra, or even mammoth. Advocates of lab-grown meat are hoping these novelties and nontraditional meats can attract consumers who are otherwise wary of these food.