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Comment by toxik | Hacker News Reader

I'm not so sure about that. Lab grown meat has the potential of offering consistent quality at consistent prices, something that's hard to do in fish farms. You're still breeding animals, but far from their natural habitat and far from their natural diet -- with lab grown meat, the equation changes in that sense.

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That's the theory, but in practice, lab/factory meat will become (much?) cheaper than 'natural' meat, so even if in terms of flavor and consistency there is no difference (which I doubt), 'organic' meat will be positioned as the luxury product.

It will take a while for lab-grown meat to match the variety available for regular meat, especially on the high-end market. Consider a steak, and how many cuts of steak there are from the same animal: T-bone, filet mignon, ribeye, flank, brisket.. the list goes on and on. Then within that, there are different breeds and styles of beef, like veal or Wagyu. Then on top of that you even have alternative species altogether, like lamb, which also have different styles and cuts. Lab-grown might eventually catch up but there's a lot of ground to cover.

Lab-grown meat can exceed that thought.

You can make cuts that are bigger than they currently can be. You can adjust composition, fat content, potentially embed flavourings directly into the meat, or combine types of meat, or create types of meat that doesn't even exist today.

So I'm sure it will take time, but there's also a fairly good chance what will win people over will be that it'll be possible to provide products that just doesn't exist from "natural" sources.

Man made diamonds greatly exceed the quality of the ones dug up from the ground, yet there is still a strong natural diamond market.

People just form an emotional attachment to ‘natural’ things.

Yes, but how long will that persist for diamonds?

I also think this is a lot less likely to happen with meat. With diamonds part of the value is in signalling status. As such there is little incentive for customers to want to participate in driving down the price.

With lab-grown meat there will eventually be a number of outright benefits.

I think you're ultimately right, but let's not forget food has historically been used to signal status as much as anything else.

To an extent, but you can do that with lab-grown meat too, by producing "limited edition" meats that are arbitrarily exclusive. Want a steak that is "designed molecule by molecule" by a top chef? That'll cost you.

As my parent comment quite rightly said, humans (like other animals) definitely use food to signal status and other social cues.

Lab-grown meat will no-doubt eventually become a common ingredient once it is economically viable. However it'll likely start off in highly processed foods where consumers are not especially discerning or seeking to signal status through consumption. This would include products like ready-made frozen meals and fast food.

It may eventually enter fine dining, but it won't obtain market dominance in our life times. People just get too set in their ways as they age, for instance the elderly in Japan drive demand for Whale meat. Older people tend to have the disposable income required for fine dining.

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