A new paper on the names and labels for cultivated products in the US published in npj Science of Food suggests that the potential universal term for these products is “cell-cultured.”
The study conducted an online experiment that tested various terms, “cultured, “cultivated,” “cell-cultured,” “cell-cultivated,” and “cell-based” on product packaging to assess consumer and regulatory response in the USA.
The experiment involved 4,385 participants viewing the terms displayed on packages of various frozen products: beef filets, beef burgers, chicken breasts, chicken burgers, Atlantic salmon filets, and salmon burgers.
Each participant was assigned to review only one product with a single term. This approach ensured that each response was specific to the single term, allowing a clearer understanding of how each word was perceived independently.
The study focused on two regulatory criteria: the ability of the term to distinguish cell-based products from conventional ones and its capacity to signal allergenicity.
Additionally, the experiment evaluated three consumer acceptance criteria: appropriateness of the term, non-disparagement of novel or conventional products (negative or positive impact on the perception), and whether the words triggered perceptions of the products being unsafe, unhealthy, or not nutritious.
The best name for cell-based proteins
According to the paper, “cultured” and “cultivated” were less effective in differentiating cell-based products from conventional ones. Cultivated salmon products were confused with “wild-caught and farm-raised.” Meanwhile, cultivated beef filets failed to differentiate the product from “grass-fed” beef filets.
“Cell-cultured,” “cell-cultivated,” and “cell-based” effectively signaled a difference from conventional products across all tested proteins and met key allergenicity signaling criteria, says the report. Curiously, the results also show that people perceive being allergic to salmon as more dangerous than being allergic to beef or chicken. Still, consumer perception measures showed that none of these names emerged as the top choice.
However, the results demonstrate that consumer acceptance slightly favored the term “cell-cultured” among beef, chicken, and salmon products, recommending its universal adoption.
None of the names tested influenced perceptions of the nutrition, taste, or health of the products. The paper says they were all perceived as moderately nutritious and neither healthy nor unhealthy.
A single term, greater transparency
Lastly, according to the authors, consumer awareness of cell-based foods remains very low. Most participants (67.4%) said that they were “not familiar at all” or only “slightly familiar” with the idea. For this reason, the term describing these novel foods should convey significant new information to uninformed consumers without additional explanatory labeling text or other supporting materials.
Recently, the Nonprofit organization Cellular Agriculture Australia (CAA) launched a new Language Guide to standardize and harmonize the terminology of the cellular agriculture industry in the region.
“Consistent use of a single term to describe and to label cell-based meat, poultry, seafood, and other proteins would create greater transparency in the marketplace, help shape public perceptions, and support a greater understanding of cell-based products by consumers who would be able to use a common search term to find accurate information online,” say the authors of the report.
The full paper, Cell-based, cell-cultured, cell-cultivated, cultured, or cultivated. What is the best name for meat, poultry, and seafood made directly from the cells of animals? can be found here.
