Frankenfood | The Mistakes Series

Host Malcolm Gladwell sends Ben Natathoff to Mattson, a food science R&D facility in the Bay Area, to investigate how language and messaging affect consumer adoption of new food technologies. The episode centers on two interconnected mistakes: the first from the 1990s-2000s involving genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and the second a potential future mistake with cultivated meat technology.

The first mistake concerns Zeneca's Flavr Savr tomato, a genetically modified crop designed to solve real agricultural problems—tomatoes are naturally delicate and difficult to harvest at optimal ripeness, forcing farmers to pick them green and gas them with ethylene before sale. Zeneca partnered with Mattson to research consumer acceptance. Steve Gundrum, Mattson's former CEO, describes how focus groups initially responded positively to the tomato's taste and quality. However, when the term "genetically modified organism" (GMO) was introduced, combined with the media-coined term "frankenfood," consumer resistance solidified dramatically. The cultural reference point of Jurassic Park (1993) amplified fears about "playing God" with science. Despite the tomato's superiority, the Flavr Savr lost market share significantly and became unavailable in supermarkets, demonstrating how naming and framing can override product quality.

The second mistake involves the cultivated meat industry emerging in 2018. Barbara Stuckey attended a conference on lab-grown meat and experienced alarm—she recognized the same pattern repeating. Terms like "lab-grown meat" and "cell-based meat" foreground the science and novelty in ways that trigger resistance similar to GMO backlash. She rallied stakeholders to brainstorm alternative names, generating options like "nano-pastured meat," "unbounded meat," "slaughter-free," and "minimalist meat." The group settled on "cultivated meat," which suggests sophistication and intentional development without explicitly highlighting the laboratory or artificial aspects.

Ben Natathoff visited Upside Foods in Emeryville, where cultivated chicken meat is being produced in large stainless steel tanks using cells from a chicken egg. He tasted both a butter chicken samosa and buttermilk fried chicken sandwich made from cultivated meat and found them indistinguishable from conventional chicken. Erin Santee from Upside Foods emphasizes that "tasting is believing" and plans to introduce the product through restaurants rather than packaged goods, allowing consumers to experience cultivated meat in a controlled context before broader market introduction. The strategy differs from GMOs partly in how the product will be communicated and introduced to the public.