Inside the Tasty Mission to Get You to Eat Lab-Made Meat

In June, two companies that create cultivated meat—or meat made by taking a sample of cells from a live animal and replicating them in a facility—became the first of their kind to receive the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s approval to sell their products in the U.S. And, thanks to partnerships the brands (Upside Foods and Good Meat) have cooked up with world-class chefs, diners at restaurants stateside can now sink their teeth into the futuristic protein source.

But before cultivated meat—also known as lab-grown meat, clean meat, or cultured meat—can find a regular home on Americans’ plates, producers will need to answer one pretty foundational question: How can they get consumers to bite?

Market research shows that there’s a way to go before many people salivate at the thought of a lab-made chicken tender. In a 2022 study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, authors and behavioral scientists at UCLA Daniel L. Rosenfeld and A. Janet Tomiyama revealed that “an estimated 35 percent of meat-eaters and 55 percent of vegetarians felt too disgusted by cultured meat to try eating it.”

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