Startups growing meat from cells in labs abandon ‘clean meat’ label

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• Some startups aiming to create real meat from animal
  cells are abandoning the term “clean meat.”
• In a meeting following a conference on
  alternatives to traditional meat, CEOs and representatives
  from those companies decided the term “clean” comes with too
  much baggage.
• The startups are also working to create an industry
  trade organization focused on working more closely with
  traditional meat companies.

CEOs from a handful of startups working to create meat from
animal cells have decided there’s one thing they don’t want their
product to be called: clean. 

Some startups had been using the term “clean meat” as a moniker
for real meat grown in a lab from animal cells. But following a
spirited discussion behind closed doors on Friday, the leaders of

at least five startups decided that the name comes with too
much negative baggage. The private meeting included
representatives from leading cell-based meat startups including
Just (formerly Hampton Creek) and Memphis Meats.

“[Clean] implies superiority, or that one method is better than
another,” Uma Valeti, the founder and CEO of a startup called

Memphis Meats, which aims to make duck, chicken, and beef
without slaughter, told Business Insider.

His comments came at the end of a panel on the future of meat
organized by the non-profit Good Food Institute but before the
closed-door meeting, which was held later that evening.

Instead of calling their products “clean,” a term the startups
had used to distinguish themselves from factory-farmed meat and
plant-based meat alternatives like the Impossible Burger, the
companies plan to use the phrase “cell-based.”

It’s a big move for the industry, which has grown from a few
small ventures to a significant and organized group
of nearly
a dozen startups and established companies.

At their meeting, the representatives of these cultured-meat
startups also agreed to form an industry trade organization to
represent themselves. They hope the move will allow for better
collaboration with traditional meat companies, but have not
released any further details on that work. 

‘We want to make winners instead of losers’

Deciding what to call meat that doesn’t come from a farm has
become tricky
business in recent months.

In the past, cultured-meat companies floated the idea of labels
emphasizing that their products come from labs instead of
slaughterhouses. That’s where the word “clean” originated.

Other startups have said their products should simply be called
“meat,” because at their core, they are the same as traditional
meat.

But traditional meat producers are not fans of those
options. 

The US Cattlemen’s Association recently
filed a petition to the US Department of Agriculture that
would limit using the terms “beef” and “meat” to products “born,
raised, and harvested in the traditional manner.” In Missouri,
that language just became law, meaning that any product made
without slaughter couldn’t be called meat.

That underscores the need for a separate label for animal
products coming out of startups that don’t rely on farms.

Still, alternatives like “farm-free” don’t work either, some of
the CEOs said. That’s because not all traditional meat is
produced in factory farms, and because it emphasizes what the
startups are seeking to avoid, rather than what they aim to
represent.

“We’d rather define ourselves by what we are, as opposed to what
we are not,” Niya Gupta, the co-founder and CEO of Fork &
Goode, a startup aiming to make pork from animal cells, told
Business Insider before the closed-door meeting on Friday.

Brian Spears, the founder of New Age Meat, another startup aiming
to make meat from animal cells, told Business Insider in an email
that the term “cell based” also will make it easier for companies
like his to collaborate with traditional meat companies, who may
have felt antagonized by the term “clean.” 

“Cell-based meat is a better label to bring them on board,”
Spears said. “We want to make winners instead of losers. Losers
will fight you, winners will fight with you.”