Multiple terms have been bandied around over the years, from ‘lab-grown’ (a media favorite) to ‘fake’ or ‘synthetic’ (favored by some cattle producers) to ‘clean’ (popularized by the GFI) to ‘slaughter-free’ (favored by some animal-welfare groups), but most startups in the nascent space have since coalesced around the terms ‘cultivated,’ ‘cell-cultured,’ or ‘cell-based.’
NMPF: ‘If FSIS permits the use of the word ‘cultured,’ even with a modifier such as ‘cell,’ consumers may be misled’
In public comments responding to the USDA’s advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) however, the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) expressed strong reservations about using ‘cultured’ or ‘cell-cultured’ to describe meat grown from animal cells.
The NMPF – which favors the somewhat loaded terms ‘lab-grown’ and ‘synthetic’ for these products – added: “The term ‘cultured dairy’ is a recognized food category that is considered to include fluid milks, yogurt, skyr, sour cream, cottage, cream cheese and kefir.
“It is absolutely necessary to distinguish lab-grown products from normal products, but if FSIS permits the use of the word ‘cultured,’ even with a modifier such as ‘cell,’ consumers may be misled and the demand for conventional food products that already use the word ‘cultured’ or ‘culture’ in an entirely different sense – including dairy products – may be adversely affected.”
BIOMILQ: ‘Cell-cultured’ is the most accurate term to describe our production process
In a comment highlighting the complexity of the issue, however, North Carolina-based BIOMILQ – a startup making human milk in bioreactors by culturing mammary epithelial cells that lactate – argued that ‘cell-cultured’ is “the most accurate term to describe the production process,” it deploys.