Frankenfood | The Mistakes Series
This Revisionist History episode explores how naming and communication shape consumer acceptance of new food technologies, using the cautionary tale of GMOs in the 1990s and applying lessons to the emerging cultivated meat industry. Barbara Stuckey from Mattson, a food science lab, advocates for the term "cultivated meat" instead of "lab-grown meat" to avoid repeating the GMO backlash that devastated the Flavr Savr tomato.
Summary
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.
About this episode
<p>Would a tomato by any other name taste as sweet? What about a steak? Malcolm sends Ben on a mission to investigate the cutting edge of food technology and two mistakes: one from the 1990s and one that’s unfolding as we speak.</p> <p> </p><p>See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.</p>
Key Insights
- The Flavr Savr tomato solved genuine agricultural problems by enabling farmers to pick tomatoes at optimal ripeness rather than green, yet was destroyed by market rejection despite superior taste and quality.
- The term 'genetically modified organism' combined with 'frankenfood' created a perception that the product was fundamentally unnatural and dangerous, regardless of the actual science or benefits.
- Consumer resistance to GMOs stemmed partly from cultural context—Jurassic Park (1993) provided a reference point where scientific hubris creates monsters, making 'frankenfood' resonate as a dystopian fear.
- Focus group testing revealed that consumers pushed back specifically when learning that scientists in laboratories were modifying seeds genetically, as opposed to traditional agricultural breeding methods like grafting apple trees.
- Barbara Stuckey recognized the identical pattern emerging with cultivated meat and proactively attempted to prevent repetition by advocating for 'cultivated meat' terminology instead of 'lab-grown meat' or 'cell-based meat.'
- The term 'cultivated meat' obscures the novelty and laboratory origins while suggesting sophistication and intentional development, similar to 'cultivated person,' without misrepresenting the product.
- Upside Foods found that cultivated chicken meat tastes indistinguishable from conventional chicken when prepared by a skilled chef, but plans restaurant introduction rather than packaged goods to control the narrative experience.
- Cultivated meat has become a political and religious issue in some areas, with correlations between anti-abortion and anti-cultivated meat positions, suggesting the science taps into deeper ideological anxieties beyond food safety.
Topics
Transcript
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