In Manhattan, a branding expert whose resume includes big-name clients like Netflix and Apple claims to have come up with 400 new names for cultivated meat, a category that is struggling to find resonance with consumers. The long list comes as cultivated meat producers begin to submit their products for regulatory approval and begin to consider building customer interest beyond the novelty factor.
“I saw these companies getting close to making FDA-approved meat, and I thought, this is so cool,”. “But I know some people are going to be scared of it.”
Previous terms have included lab-grown meat, slaughter-free meat, cell-based meat, synthetic meat, cultured meat, and cultivated meat. USDA, in landmark approvals earlier this year, used the term cell-cultivated. Producers are largely using the term “cultivated meat,” but Hall isn’t satisfied this is the right nomenclature. “It doesn’t sound like something that tastes good,” he says. “While the word is technically correct, it doesn’t feel welcoming. . . . Scientific and engineering minds have the most issues with names that don’t feel logical. However, consumers don’t run on logic. They run on feelings.”
Hall will share the full list freely with any company in the space, but offered a few examples: grown meat, copious proteins, perpetual proteins, method eating, or switch eating. “The names don’t have to be correct,” he says. “They just have to put an idea in the mind.”