By prioritising quality, engaging consumers and leveraging lessons from plant-based foods, the cultivated meat industry has a unique opportunity to revolutionise the food system, addressing global health and sustainability challenges while building trust for long-term success. Suzi Gerber, executive director of the Association of Meat, Poultry and Seafood Innovation (AMPS), explores how the industry can navigate the road to consumer acceptance.

The cultivated meat industry is advancing rapidly, but it must also cultivate consumer acceptance as this nascent sector and its products continue to evolve. Cultivated meat has enormous potential to transform how we eat, think about food, and improve human and planetary health.

However, achieving ambitious goals requires patience, strategy and, above all, including consumers at every stage. By engaging consumers thoughtfully and learning from older alternative protein categories like plant-based foods, the cultivated meat industry can lay a foundation for stable, long-term acceptance.

Lesson #1

Consumers judge novel foods quickly – Make that first bite count

Food impressions tend to stick. For novel foods, initial exposures often come to represent entire categories. Consumers have deeply ingrained habits, making it challenging to adopt new foods. Cultivated meat, however, is not one thing; it is a range of methods, food types, structures, nutritional profiles and impacts, improving rapidly and frequently, much like plant-based foods.

However, differences between products and their progression over time aren’t always obvious to consumers. Often, one experience represents the whole category. Unlike common consumer goods like cell phones, which consumers expect to improve over time, foods aren’t typically understood to be as iterative.

The second wave of plant-based products experienced a surge in popularity, reminiscent of the 'Peak of Inflated Expectations' (Gartner Hype Cycle, bottom image). Like that model, this was followed by strikingly waning enthusiasm. Misalignment between development timelines (Innovation R&D S-Curve, top image) and the progression of consumer expectations has been observed to result in bottoming out.

Rushing to market may thus not yield the most successful or enduring products, particularly for disruptive innovations that require generating consumer interest from scratch.

The cultivated meat industry should prioritise functional quality over speed. Companies and investors who focus on delivering products that meet genuine consumer demands will likely achieve greater success. Bringing consumers in and keeping them apprised of product iteration could build better relationships and foster trust.

Companies would be well-advised to resist the urge to rush products to market, and financial stakeholders should understand the greater risks of being too quick to launch. One potential solution could be to support research into whether tech-inspired strategies, such as 'versioning,' are viable for cultivated meat products. Versioning signals to consumers that the product will evolve. Imagine releases like 'Cultivated Salmon Sashimi 1.0' or 'Cell-Cultivated Chicken Strips – Generation 3'.

This approach not only helps prime consumer expectations but also allows companies to debut products after significant advancements that would ideally include engagement with consumers with at-home adoption studies. Versioning also allows every release to be a point of excitement, and an opportunity to reset impressions, encouraging consumers to come along for the journey.

Lesson #2

Consumer involvement builds loyalty and acceptance

Success depends on including consumers in insights research and activating them as influencers throughout the development process. This could include beta launches or early access programmes targeting both powerful social and political brokers as well as communities.

The industry should seek to understand how these foods fit or could fit into daily life for consumers. Going beyond isolated sensory evaluation can foster genuine relationship building, instilling not only personal investment in the product’s evolution but also reassurance that needs and desires are met.

Ideally, creating a community of supporters precedes market launch, and remains ongoing. Industry-wide efforts can promote cultivated meat through public tastings that link the technology to broader issues like food security, sustainability and ethics. Achieving this requires support from independent advocates and pre-competitive collaboration, which will need significant support from investors and foundations.

Lesson #3

A blessing in disguise – Slow regulatory approvals as opportunities

Approval of new cultivated meat products has been slow. While the US may be falling behind other countries, the FDA indicated that new guidelines for industry have been drafted and will be published in 2025. For many companies, this slow approval timeline was seen as a crisis, and indeed some tragically ran out of time waiting.

However, there could be a silver lining – for companies that remain, this time has been used to refine and optimise their technology.

Subsequently, several breakthroughs in texture, scalability and cost have been made – all factors that will significantly enhance consumer acceptance and societal benefit. This extra time for refinement offers a golden opportunity to ensure that the first products to reach consumers are top-tier.

Conversations with financial stakeholders should emphasise the importance of long-term planning and the unique nature of consumer food acceptance. By treating the slow and thorough FDA process as a strategic opportunity rather than a setback, companies can develop products that build strong, positive associations from the start and emphasise that the careful FDA process should serve to increase consumer confidence.

Lesson #4

Nutrition needs industry-academic collaboration

While cultivated meat could potentially optimise the nutritional composition of meat, success will depend on consumer confidence in even factual claims. Nutrition extends beyond label details; it requires rigorous, peer-reviewed research and publicly published data to demonstrate outcomes.

While not required for food businesses, cultivated meat has an opportunity to become a role model for a new and improved food system by demonstrating the greater downstream health and environmental outcomes that result from the iterative industry-level commitment to societal benefit.

However, this requires public funding and research conducted by trusted academic institutions. By doing so, companies can prove the importance of these foods and position these novel foods as vanguards of better health, social responsibility and sustainability in the food system – the future that most people want for the food system.

Charting a path forward

The cultivated meat industry has an unprecedented opportunity to reshape the future of food. By learning from past challenges, improving transparency and prioritising consumer engagement, the industry can build products that resonate.

A steady approach – focused on loyalty, research and trust – can introduce novel foods that win public support. With this foundation, cultivated meat can meet today’s urgent needs while preparing to tackle tomorrow’s challenges.

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