Page 54 - Farm and Food Policy Strategies for 2040 Series

Meanwhile, Ball says that, like any new product for mass markets, corporations trying them out
on restaurant and supermarket customers will likely absorb losses for a while. “I don’t think the
first products are actually going to be cost-competitive; they’ll be in high-end restaurants — like,
proof-of-concept (products),” he says.
To be successful in the food market, he says, cell-based meat must appeal to average consumers
and “be products such as burgers and chicken and the like that are available at competitive prices
... where they already shop.”
At the same time, some makers of vegan meat alternatives, such as Nestle’s Garden
Gourmet, and Impossible Foods, with its Impossible Burger, have found new success in
meat-taste and texture in their products, and such plant-based meat substitutes, already on
the market, may end up a better sell with consumers long term than cell-based meats.
But also note that consumers do develop tastes for foods concocted in laboratories. Modern
cheese makers, for example, use genetically altered microbial rennet rather than the traditional
rennet from calf stomachs to curdle milk for cheese, and vegetarians typically prefer the
microbial version.
Meanwhile, for the Impossible Burger itself, researchers isolated heme, an essential molecule in
all plants and animals but exceptionally concentrated in meats, thus supplying meaty flavor.
Already, says Ball, “everywhere from White Castle to fancy, high-end restaurants are selling
Impossible Burgers.”

52 www.Agri-Pulse.com