For years, food technology companies have referred to their products as “cultured” or “lab-grown,” but as these new businesses start to make a first foray into the public eye, they are also pushing ideas that may make people uncomfortable—such as meat grown in labs.
By opting for this terminology, the industry hopes to better communicate to people the ethos behind their products, rather than the actual processes (which often do occur in a laboratory) used to deliver them to the kitchen table.
Research suggests the biggest influence on a person’s opinion of a particular food is how they “expect” it will taste. Giving fun, enticing names to healthy foods increases the desire to try them. Why not call broccoli “broccoli bites” or carrots “X-ray vision carrots?” Renaming foods to make them sound more appealing resulted in an increase in the sale of vegetables in the school cafeteria by 27%.
