A California company says it can grow meat, which tastes just like chicken or beef, inside its own laboratory. One company official says it will be on store shelves no later than the year 2022.
Really? Texas A&M agriculture economist David Anderson wonders who they will sell it to? he says he's hearing no calls for meat grown in a lab.
“If you were someone who wants natural, organic, whatever, this isn't that,” he says. “This was grown in a test tube, petri dish, laboratory. How does that make sense?”
Production costs are still high, but they're coming down. Competitive pricing may be possible, but there still doesn't appear to be a demand for "fake beef," and that could kill the idea.
“No,” he says, “it's not clear to me that there's any demand for this. What group of consumers would be interested in this?”