By Futurist Thomas Frey
When Bold Predictions Meet Stubborn Reality
In 2017, I predicted cultured meat would transform the food industry by 2020-2030, with grocery stores stocking lab-grown beef, traditional ranchers going out of business, and exotic meats from extinct species becoming specialty products. I envisioned thousands of home cultivation farms, designer materials from celebrity cells, and cultured meat becoming the world’s cheapest food by 2025.
Eight years later, none of that happened. Lab-grown meat isn’t in your grocery store. It’s barely in any stores anywhere. The revolution I confidently predicted hasn’t materialized, and it’s worth examining why my optimism crashed into reality’s stubborn barriers.
But here’s the twist: while cultured meat failed to launch, the broader concept of lab-grown materials—what I later called “Our Lab-Grown Future”—is actually progressing in unexpected directions. Lab-grown wood, milk proteins through fermentation, diamonds, and medical materials are advancing while cultured meat stumbles. Understanding why some cellular agriculture succeeds while meat specifically fails reveals important lessons about predicting disruptive technologies.
Continue reading… “The Lab-Grown Dream That Didn’t Happen (Yet): What Went Wrong and Where Cellular Agriculture Is Actually Heading”