Cruelty-Free Marketing in Food Tech

Food tech is hot with hundreds of millions of dollars pouring into the sector. Tech billionaires have taken notice. Particularly the "Vegan Mafia", which is betting the sector can solve the biggest problem confronting the vegan movement; people like eating meat. The goal is to substitute burgers, chicken nuggets, sushi and shrimp with lab grown versions that replace the animals with fermentation tanks. Meat from a petri dish is less appetizing than meat on a dish, so the purveyors of lab grown meat have re-branded their products "clean meat", drawing inspiration from the clean energy sector.

Who is the customer for clean meat--vegans or the carnivores among us--and how will these new products be marketed? I examined these questions in my talk at the New Harvest conference.