Lab meat a challenge for NZ
Farmers have a real challenge on their hands after international research shows most people would try meat made in a laboratory and meat from plantbased sources, rather than from animals.
Landcorp commercial development general manager Andrew Sliper said the research showed the potential consumer group for plant-based meat was more than just vegans and vegetarians, who made up only 3 per cent of the population, and it was being aimed at the general population.
‘‘I have tried plant-based meat in a burger,’’ he told about 60 business people and farmers at the Future Farms conference in Palmerston North last week. ‘‘It looks and tastes like meat. They are pretty good.’’
The international research was based on the Visual Capitalist website, Sliper said, and showed 62 per cent of people in a survey were prepared to try lab chicken and 70 per cent lab beef.a further 69 per cent were keen to try pig meat.
Sliper said most United States shoppers had a picture of a beef feedlot when they thought about farming.
He said developers and backers of the Impossible Burger processed from plant materials by US company Impossible Foods intended to put feedlots out of business.
The meat industry in the US had spent many millions of dollars to try to make lab-grown meat redundant and it had not worked, he said.
‘‘People have said to me: ‘we could grow soyabeans and plants for use in these meats’. But that seems unimaginative to me. We’d
More important was the question: why are people buying this plantbased burger Landcorp's Andrew Sliper
go from being one price taker, to being another.’’
He said more important was the question: ‘‘why are people buying this plant-based burger’’.
‘‘People have aversions to climate change, growth hormones, animal welfare is a big issue and [they] are worried about health issues related to meat.’’
He said New Zealand farming needed to understand the consumer much more and build a brand of grass-fed meat that did not involve feedlots.
Labour list MP Kieran Mcanulty said farmers faced greater consumer expectations and more environmental pressures than previously.
He said consumers were more enlightened and wanted to know how their food was treated and where it was from.
Lab and plant-based meat was a big issue for New Zealand, he said.
‘‘Look at your opportunities and understand your point of difference.’’
Mcanulty said he played rugby in Ireland, where he saw New Zealand butter with free range on its packaging.
‘‘It was probably the same as other butter, but with that on it, it got a price premium.’’
He said primary producers needed to be able to be sustainable, and that would result in consumers paying more.
Mcanulty said the Government was setting up a rural proofing policy and would look at the impact of legislation on the rural community.
‘‘Health eduction, infrastructure access to technology, all those things have a real impact on the rural communities. The focus of all legislation will be what is the impact of this on rural people.’’
He said this Government was not going to leave decisions to the marketplace and let other countries catch up with New Zealand farming and technology.
‘‘Between 2012 and 2016 there was a 15 per cent decline in the number of people studying agriculture and the environment.’’