Cell-cultivated meat needs a new category name

Congratulations to UPSIDE Foods and Eat Just, Inc. on the FDA approval of cell-cultivated meat. This is a big moment.

Today is an important step forward and Vespertine believes that a new and unique category name could help this idea take off and benefit the entire industry.
 
Vespertine follows food-tech closely and we’ve been naming for the better part of two decades. We’ve seen every category name from cloud to AI take a shot at catching the cultural zeitgeist. It’s difficult to tell what will stick, but it feels like terms such as “lab-meat” and “in-vitro” will be challenging for most people.
 
The best category names create a new idea in the mind (think fiscal cliff, ghosting, sportswashing, etc.). And since this is food, it should be appealing. There will also be cultural controversy so it would be nice to have a term that encourages versus disparages. There’s room for everyone.
 
Axios had an interesting article a few years ago about which term to use:
 
“What to watch: It remains unclear how, specifically, the USDA will label cell-cultured meat, but the final decision could overrule some state laws that currently prohibit the food to just be labeled as "meat." Per the AP, these lab-grown products will likely be unable to use terms like “ground beef” or “hamburger.””
 
This isn’t a problem though because there are a million ways you can name this. It can be…
 
- What it is
- What it does
- How you behave around it
- The benefit
- The industry
- Etc.
 
We follow the 2bobs.com podcast (it’s fantastic) and they talk about “showing the mess.” Naming requires developing a giant mess (thousands of names) and then grabbing the diamonds from the trash. We need ideas that are interesting and potentially ownable. Therefore, at the beginning of the year, we made an exploratory deck with 400+ new category name ideas.
 
Anyone want to see the mess? Let’s chat.
 

 
(Vespertine believes in doing good in the world so feel free to share this post. Commentary is welcome. Ideas beget ideas. Thanks!)

#alternativeproteins #fakemeat #alternativemeat #labgrownmeat #plantbasedmeat #cellcultivated