The global food system faces significant challenges, from environmental impacts of livestock farming to ethical concerns about animal welfare. While cultivated meat offers a promising alternative, its future adoption remains uncertain due to questions about scalability, consumer acceptance, and economic viability. A research project could help address these uncertainties by developing data-driven models to forecast cultivated meat consumption through 2050.

Understanding Future Demand

One way to approach this would be to create detailed projections of per capita consumption based on current technological and economic trends. These models could account for factors like price elasticity, comparing cultivated meat to traditional meat across different regions, income levels, and urban versus rural populations. For example, the research might explore how consumption patterns would change if cultivated meat reached price parity with conventional meat by 2030.

Key stakeholders who could benefit from this research include:

• Food tech companies needing demand forecasts to justify production investments
• Investors requiring market size estimates
• Policy makers designing agricultural and climate policies

Building Reliable Models

Since cultivated meat is a novel product category with limited historical data, the research could use analogs like plant-based meat adoption curves, adjusted for unique factors. The approach might combine multiple data sources, including consumer surveys, expert interviews, and early market data, validated through methods like Delphi panels with cross-disciplinary experts.

To address the rapidly changing technological landscape, the models could be designed to be modular, allowing for quick incorporation of new efficiency breakthroughs. Regional dietary patterns would be accounted for, with different adoption curves projected for areas with strong traditional meat-eating cultures versus more flexible markets.

Differentiating from Existing Research

While some organizations track alternative protein investments or publish industry reports, this project would focus specifically on quantitative forecasting tools for cultivated meat. It would combine technological feasibility assessments with consumer behavior modeling, filling a gap in current sustainable food system planning. The research could provide more granular, actionable data than existing high-level projections that often don't specifically account for cultivated meat.

Potential applications of the findings could include informing investment decisions, guiding policy design around agricultural subsidies and carbon credits, and helping food companies plan their product pipelines. The research methodology's rigor and flexibility could make it particularly valuable in this emerging field.