Preparing the New Market for Meat Alternatives

Consumers are increasingly turning to alternatives to traditional meat. The sale of plant-based meat has more than doubled in the United States in recent years, rising by 148 percent from 2019 to 2020 alone. Some experts project that the plant-based meat industry will grow into a $252 billion market by the end of the decade. Unlike older market alternatives such as veggie burgers, plant-based meat is specifically designed to taste and feel like real meat. Yet another booming industry is not merely a meat-like alternative—it is real meat. Cultured meat is meat grown in a laboratory from cells taken from living animals. It does not require any animal slaughter, and some researchers find that it could have a significantly smaller carbon footprint than traditional meat. Although cultured meat is not yet commercially available in the United States, experts project that this cell-based meat industry will achieve price parity with conventional meat by 2025. Cell-based meat may “significantly disrupt” the traditional meat market as it provides real animal meat with fewer environmental harms In this uncharted territory of neither plant-based meat alternatives nor traditional meat, policymakers must create a regulatory framework for the soon-to-be booming cell-based meat industry. In 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reached an agreement to regulate cell-based meat jointly to ensure that, when it comes to market, cell-based meat is “safe and properly labeled.” FDA will oversee cell collection, banking, and growth, while USDA will conduct safety inspections and develop labeling for cell-based meat. In this week’s Saturday Seminar, experts discuss regulatory issues to expect with an emerging alternative meat industry