Whether you call it “lab-grown” or “cultivated” or some other adjective, cultured meat protein is likely still a long way from the supermarket meat case.
But the timing for a serious, mainstream conversation has rarely been better. After all, American shoppers are clearly having a protein moment.
So let’s look at the numbers.
FMI reported last year that 98% of U.S. households buy meat, 73% of Americans view meat as a healthy choice and 90% say getting enough protein is important. Circana has similarly reported that protein remains the top item consumers want to increase in their diets, across eating occasions.
This is all happening in a category that’s practically at the center of a firestorm – or as close as you can get to a “firestorm” in the grocery industry.
The meat department is wracked by inflation, antitrust action, avian flu, feed costs, labor pressures, sustainability concerns, and increasingly value-conscious and protein-focused customers.
In other words, there are some formidable obstacles to growth in the meat category.
But there are increasing options…
Cultivated Meat Isn’t Just a Substitute
Meat substitutes and replacements aren’t new at all. Plant-based meat substitutes are a $10.4-billion market in their own right. They’re also not universally accepted by consumers, who cite perceptions like expense, taste, inferior nutrition, or excessive processing as reasons why they don’t buy plant-based meats.
Cultivated meat, often called lab-grown or cell-cultured meat, is real animal meat produced from animal cells rather than from slaughtered livestock. Producers take a small sample of cells, feed them nutrients in controlled production systems, and thereby grow muscle and fat tissue. (It’s not all that dissimilar to the lab-grown chocolate we’ve discussed.)
It isn’t plant-based meat. That distinction is central to the sales pitch… and to the prevailing consumer confusion.
Many consumers still struggle to understand where cultivated meat fits in the broader alternative-protein landscape. Research from The Good Food Institute found consumers are more likely to confuse cultivated meat with plant-based meat than with conventional meat itself, particularly when labels and terminology are unclear. A separate Morning Consult/GFI survey found only 27% of U.S. adults said they were familiar with cultivated meat even after it was explained, underscoring how much basic consumer education the potential category still requires.
It’s important to characterize cultivated meat as a potential category; it’s not widely available to consumers as of yet.
Cultivated meat in the U.S. crossed an important regulatory threshold in 2023, when UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat received final USDA approvals to sell cell-cultivated chicken, following FDA review.
Those were the first cultivated meat approvals in the U.S. market. But, of course, approval is not the same thing as scale.
The category remains commercially tiny. Production is expensive, capacity is limited and most products have appeared through controlled foodservice introductions rather than broad retail distribution. GFI’s industry work continues to frame manufacturing scale, process improvement and production capacity as central hurdles for the sector.
That is the practical grocery lens: cultivated meat may be technologically real, but it is not yet a merchandising reality.
Consumer acceptance is the other major constraint.
Cultivated Meat Faces a Steep Perception Challenge
GFI’s 2025 consumer snapshot found that only 32% of U.S. consumers considered cultivated meat very or somewhat appealing, 28% said they would be extremely or very likely to try it as a free sample, and just 17% said they would be extremely or very likely to purchase it.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the language used makes a huge difference in perception.
A 2024 Purdue study found as many as 60% of consumers willing to try “cultivated chicken in a restaurant setting,” while willingness fell when the product was framed as “meat grown using cells from animals” or “laboratory-grown meat.”
That is not some minor marketing question; it’s cultivated meat’s core challenge.
Consumers like “real meat.” They like “high quality.” They like “antibiotic-free.” They like the idea of food produced without killing animals, or unsustainable farming methods.. But GFI/Morning Consult research found that phrases such as “grown from cells,” “outside the animal,” “muscle/fat/connective tissue” and “bioreactor” were unappealing. “100% real meat,” “high-quality food,” “same as the meat we eat today” and “antibiotic-free” tested far better.
In other words, the more technical the explanation becomes, the more the category risks losing mainstream shoppers.
That creates a familiar grocery problem. Plant-based meat rode a wave of enthusiasm before running into repeat-purchase, taste, price, and consumer-perception headwinds. Cultivated meat is very different in composition, but it faces a similar retail test: Will shoppers buy it more than once, at a price that works, in a form that fits how they actually cook and eat?
Let’s Be Clear-Eyed About Cultivated Meat’s Benefits and Drawbacks
There are real, powerful arguments in favor of lab-grown meat.
Supporters say cultivated meat could reduce reliance on antibiotics, lower some animal-welfare concerns, reduce exposure to livestock disease shocks and, eventually, offer a more predictable protein supply. In a world where cattle cycles, bird flu, and global grain markets can all move retail meat prices, that promise has obvious appeal.
There are real drawbacks, too. The industry still has to prove it can scale economically. It must show that production energy requirements do not undercut environmental claims. It has to earn trust from shoppers who already worry about processed foods. And it must navigate a political environment that is becoming more hostile in some states.
That hostility is real: The National Agricultural Law Center reported in April 2026 that Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, and Texas had passed laws banning cell-cultured meat, with bans varying by sale, manufacture and distribution. NCSL also reported that lawmakers in 18 states had introduced 30 bills this year addressing sales bans, labeling rules, procurement restrictions or enforcement authority.
As promising as cultivated meat might be, the near-term, practical takeaway for the grocery industry has to be: cultivated meat isn’t ready to replace beef, chicken, or pork. Yet.
There’s a smarter read, though. The protein set is expanding. Traditional meat remains dominant. But the broader category now includes premium animal protein, value-added convenience meat, high-protein snacks, functional foods, plant-based alternatives, precision-fermentation ingredients and, eventually, cultivated products.
Cultivated meat is still early, expensive, and culturally contested, but the genie is out of the bottle, so to speak. Before long, it’s likely it will be a protein, policy, trust, and assortment contender.
And that makes it worth watching, not because it’s within striking distance of taking over the meat case, but because the pressures that created it are not going away.
