Can lab-grown foie gras find a niche in the luxury food market?
Makers of lab-grown aka cell-cultured meat have pitched the product as a fix for our food chain’s environmental and humanitarian issues. But it comes with its own baggage—it is expensive to produce, it can’t nail the protein’s texture and it starts “life” as sludge.
This technology has run up against the same kind of problems that have stymied all kinds of alternative meats, whether made in a lab or created from vegetables. After bursting onto the market in the late 2010s, plant-based stars such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat had a momentary rise but have since struggled, as high costs, texture issues and consumer skepticism stalled widespread adoption.
