Nobody is going to pay me to predict trends or be a futurist. When I first heard a description of a smartphone, I thought, “What’s the point? I have a phone, I have a camera, I have a PalmPilot. I’m good.”

Now, of course, like most people, I won’t go anywhere without the one gadget.

My dismal track record in prognostications makes me cautious about predicting the future of new technologies in the protein industry, such as plant-based or lab-cultured animal proteins. The speed with which the technology has developed, then improved, and the amounts that have been invested in the concepts are breathtaking.

But talk is cheap, and these technologies and processes are not. When Meatingplace first began following the market, about five years ago, I thought we were at least a decade from commercialization and more than that for mainstream availability, particularly of the lab-grown cultured animal products.

Plant-based meat analogs, of course, are already available at QSRs (Impossible Sliders at White Castle). Lab-grown cultured animal products, which started at an estimated cost of $325,000 per beef pattie in 2013, are down to an estimated $2,400 per pound of cultured muscle tissue, per the U.S.-based company Memphis Meats. Not quite meat case-ready, but getting there faster than I would have imagined.

Now there’s talk of an Israeli company seeking to develop a way to create a whole-muscle product in a lab, using 3-D printer technology. That doesn’t sound as far-fetched to me as it would have just a year ago.

And yet, I don’t see the sky falling for the traditional, harvested-from-animals meat products that humans have enjoyed for millennia, because — taste.

A piece of meat is an organic work of art, endlessly malleable based on how it’s cut, shaped, formed, smoked, cooked, grilled, braised, marinated, seasoned … the options are infinite. It’s why heated debates break out over the “best” steakhouse, or chicken wings, or pork belly, even though fundamentally the same product is being cooked in more or less the same manner.

Reproducing these new technologies over and over, however, will yield a product that will be good enough, tasty enough, have the right mouthfeel and price point to find a market, even if the starting point is animal cells.

Like McDonald’s, the appeal, I think, will be something other than fantastic flavor. The fact that an animal was not harvested for that burger will appeal to some. The price point will be the appeal for others, along with perhaps the absolute predictability of taste and amount of fat and such — just like a trip to McDonald’s can be exactly the same in Chicago, Tokyo or Paris.

As of now, in 2018, these companies have a ways to go before they can conquer this hurdle. Having sampled several of the plant-based analogs, I will say that my eating experience was in no way predictable or always enjoyable, and that’s a problem.

So while I am impressed, even awed, by the speed with which the technology in this area has leaped forward, I don’t believe they will prove “disruptive.” Not in the sense of a smartphone all but shutting down point-and-shoot camera and personal digital assistant markets.

Rather, I think the technologies will co-exist with traditionally produced meat products, as there is room in foodservice for both McDonald’s and Smith & Wollensky.

Am I just thinking wishfully? Do you think disruption of the meat industry, or co-existence, is the most likely scenario?

Gaze into my crystal ball .... or better yet, don't.

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