In-Vitro Meat
Congratulations! Your product has made it to the store.
But will people buy it?
(Click on the challenges below)
Challenges facing the Commercialization/Sales of IVM
Concept of Naturalness
Is IVM natural? On one hand, IVM can be thought of as natural because its starting material is in fact stem cells from a living organism. However, these cells are manipulated to grow and divide in a manner that results in the final product. According to “The Dimensions of Naturalness,” history, property, and relationship based, IVM does not qualify as natural. Overcoming the idea of IVM as unnatural can have a positive impact on its sales and public acceptance.
Yuck Factor
The Yuck Factor describes “the influence of instinctive responses against new technology (Schmidt, 2008)." Similar to public perception of IVM as unnatural, many people find the idea of in-vitro-meat as repulsive, and thus the demand for it may not reach high levels.
Cost
Cost and pricing not only determine whether the sales and profitability of IVM will be possible, but it also determines what kinds of people may have access to it. Based on the present technology, IVM does not seem to be very profitable. Take the use of fetal bovine serum (FBS) alone. According to Jochems et al., the price and availability of FBS fluctuate depending on the meat industry, and each batch has to be pretested before its use. Furthermore, the use of this “excessively technological luxury product” has been estimated to cost more than $75/lb. of IVM in terms of serum alone (Dilawar, 2015). For the whole product, it has been estimated that it could cost around 391 euros per kg of cultured meat to make, which translated over to around $438 USD (Van der Weele, 2014). Given the high costs, it is most likely that people of lower incomes will not have access to IVM. However, as technology and efficiency improve, the cost of making IVM may go down, increasing its profitability and the populations that will have access to it.