The Battle Lines Are Drawn
Picture this: you’re standing in the grocery store meat section, but instead of deciding between beef and chicken, you’re faced with a completely different question. Should you grab the plant-based burger that “bleeds” beet juice, the lab-grown chicken nuggets cultivated from actual animal cells, or the mushroom-based strips that somehow taste just like pulled pork? Welcome to 2025, where the fake meat wars have officially begun, and the competition is getting intense.
Despite recent sales declines, consumer tailwinds are strong. Consumer research indicates that many are interested in cutting back their meat consumption and/or increasing their consumption of plant-based foods. What started as a niche market for vegetarians has exploded into a billion-dollar industry that’s making traditional meat producers sweat. But here’s the thing that might surprise you: not all fake meat is created equal, and the differences between these three approaches could change everything about how we eat.
Plant-Based Meat: The Pioneer That Started It All
Let’s start with the OG of the fake meat world – plant-based alternatives. This current crop of plant-based meat—which includes burgers from Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, as well as fillets from Good Catch and sausages from Tofurky—aims to be guilt-free for vegetarians and animal lovers yet meaty enough for carnivores. These companies basically took the concept of “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” and flipped it on its head.
Most start with a protein, often pea or soy, to provide structure. These aren’t the whole foods, but concentrates and isolates extracted in a lab. Oil is added to make the food juicy and tender. Think of it like building a house – you need the frame (protein), the insulation (fats), and all the finishing touches (flavors and colors) to make it look and feel like the real thing.
The results have been pretty impressive. Among the burgers, Impossible and Beyond’s were the most meatlike. Impossible’s Chicken Nuggets came “closest to tasting like a typical chicken nugget,” and MorningStar Farm’s Veggie Chik’n Strips shredded “like chicken breast.” But here’s where it gets interesting – many consumers still aren’t sold. The primary barrier to consumption of plant-based foods is taste. According to Mintel, 53% of all consumers agree that plant-based protein products should taste indistinguishable from meat.
Lab-Grown Meat: Science Fiction Becomes Reality
Now we’re entering truly wild territory. Enter lab-grown meat – grown in bioreactors from animal stem cells. Also known as cultured or cultivated meat, lab-grown meat doesn’t rely on farms or slaughterhouses. This isn’t some distant future fantasy anymore – it’s happening right now, and it’s blowing people’s minds.
The manufacturing process begins with acquiring and banking stem cells from an animal. These cells are then grown in bioreactors (known colloquially as cultivators) at high densities and volumes. The cells are fed an oxygen-rich cell culture medium containing basic nutrients such as amino acids, glucose, vitamins, and inorganic salts. It’s like growing meat in a petri dish, except the petri dish is the size of a small room and costs millions of dollars.
These advancements are crucial in bringing costs down from the astronomical $330,000 per burger in 2013 to under $10 per patty today. That’s still expensive for a burger, but considering where we started, it’s progress that would make Moore’s Law jealous. Mosa Meat and Meatable have successfully developed proprietary plant-based growth media, reducing costs by up to 80%. These innovations are expected to bring the cost of lab-grown beef and other products closer to that of conventional meat, making them more accessible to consumers.
In June 2023, both UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat acquired inspection grants from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), allowing them to sell their cultivated chicken to consumers in the United States. In 2024, Israel’s Ministry of Health approved the first cultivated beef product produced by Aleph Farms. The regulatory wheels are turning, but they’re moving slowly, and some states are pushing back hard.
The Mushroom Revolution: Nature’s Hidden Ace
Here’s where things get really fascinating. While everyone was arguing about plants versus labs, fungi quietly entered the chat – and they might just steal the whole show. Fermenting the root-like spores of specific mushrooms (using the same, age-old process that creates beer and bread) produces a protein rich, flavourless foodstuff called mycoprotein. Once processed, mycoprotein can be used to make a variety of substitute meat products, and its naturally meat-like structure gives both a cost and texture advantage over plant-based proteins.
Think about it: mushrooms have been fooling people into thinking they’re meat for centuries. A variety of mushrooms naturally have the characteristics of meat, including beefsteak fungus (Fistulina hepatica) which bears a striking resemblance to beef, and chicken of the woods (Laetiporus sulphureus) which has earned a reputation for having the same texture as chicken. Mother Nature basically created the first fake meat, and we’re just now catching up.
A study published earlier this year in scientific journal Nature found that replacing just 20 percent of beef with fungi protein could cut global deforestation by a whopping 50 percent. That’s not a typo – fifty percent! Growing mushrooms uses 98% less fresh water than other vegetables, generates 85 times less carbon dioxide than beef production and uses 99.7% less land than soy production. If that doesn’t make you do a double-take, check your pulse.
The Taste Test: Who’s Actually Winning Hearts and Stomachs?
Let’s be honest – taste is everything in this game. You can have the most sustainable, ethical, perfect-on-paper product in the world, but if it tastes like cardboard, nobody’s buying it twice. MyForest Foods says, “If someone didn’t tell you MyBacon was made from mushrooms you would never guess!” MyBacon replicates traditional pork bacon’s nostalgic taste and texture with all the same smoky, salty, and savory qualities. “To say it’s delicious is an understatement!” says MyForest Foods.
Plant-based options have come a long way from the sad veggie burgers of the past. None were identical—but some came close, and our panel of sensory experts judged at least one in each category to be very good. The trick is that different plant proteins excel at mimicking different meats – some nail the burger experience, others crush it with chicken nuggets.
Lab-grown meat has a unique advantage here: it’s literally the same cells as conventional meat. The end product is nutritionally comparable to conventional meat, allowing us to feed more people with fewer resources and meet the growing global demand for protein in a more humane way. But here’s the catch – growing cells in a lab doesn’t automatically guarantee perfect taste. The environment matters, and scientists are still figuring out how to replicate the complex flavors that develop when animals live their whole lives.
The Environmental Scorecard
If you care about the planet (and let’s face it, you should), the environmental impact of these alternatives is where things get really interesting. With no methane emissions from grazing animals, meat-free proteins like soy, pea protein and mushrooms are better for the environment than farmed meat, which is a key driver of biodiversity loss. In July, the Carbon Trust compared the carbon footprint of Quorn’s mycoprotein products against other forms of meat and plant-based protein. It found beef mince has the highest carbon footprint and soybeans the lowest.
This efficiency translates to cultivated meat requiring 64 to 90 percent less land, and causing 20 to 94 percent less air pollution, 69 to 98 percent less acidification of soils, 75 to 99 percent less marine eutrophication compared to conventional chicken, pork, and beef production, respectively. Those numbers are staggering – we’re talking about potentially transforming one of the biggest environmental challenges facing humanity.
But here’s something that might surprise you: not all alternatives are created equal environmentally. Researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) recently conducted a study that found that replacing 20 percent of meat with fungi-based meats could halve deforestation by 2050. “…Replacing minced red meat with microbial protein would be a great start to reduce the detrimental impacts of present-day beef production.” Mushrooms are quietly becoming the environmental superhero of the fake meat world.
The Price Tag Reality Check
Let’s talk money, because that’s often what decides what actually ends up on people’s plates. Plant-based options have gotten more affordable, but they’re still typically more expensive than conventional meat. Yet product development and enhancement opportunities remain, including to improve taste and lower prices in the plant-based meat category. The good news is that economies of scale are starting to kick in as production ramps up.
Lab-grown meat is still in the “luxury product” phase. Beyond the issues of regulatory approval and consumer acceptance, cultivated meat is still very expensive to make. “Currently we’re about £30 (about $37) per kilogram of the chicken that we’re producing, and we’d want to be between £5 and £10 (between $6.20 and $12.40).” That’s coming down fast, but it’s still not competitive with your average grocery store chicken.
Mushroom-based alternatives might have the edge here. For just over a dollar, you can buy a can of beans with multiple servings. Beans are a great low-cost option for those who can’t afford expensive plant-based meat alternatives Although beans do not contain as much protein as seitan or tempeh, they are a great source of fiber. While this example is about beans, the principle applies – fungi can be grown quickly and cheaply, potentially making them the most economical option.
The Health Factor
Here’s where things get complicated. However, many plant-based alternatives are considered ultra-processed food because they’ve undergone industrial processes and are typically made with flavour enhancers like monosodium glutamate, emulsifiers like soy or sunflower lecithin, and other chemical additives. On top of this, some products can be particularly high in salt. There is a growing amount of research showing that ultra-processed foods are bad for our health.
Aside from being a protein powerhouse, unprocessed fungi products are naturally low in fat and sodium, two things most commonly associated with heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Of course, animal protein, particularly beef, often has large amounts of both sodium and fat. Even many other meat alternatives are highly processed, loaded with artificial flavorings, and coated in seed oils. Replacing them with mycoprotein may have far-reaching positive effects on health and longevity.
Lab-grown meat has a potential advantage here because it’s technically the same as conventional meat, just grown differently. But the jury’s still out on whether the artificial growing environment affects the nutritional profile. Mycelium, the underground part of fungi, is rich in vitamins, minerals, and other compounds that our bodies need to stave off illness and operate at peak performance. Vitamin D is one of them, and it is notoriously hard to get from many foods. Mushrooms and mycelium pack a lot of it.
The Innovation Race
In the pursuit of creating plant-based meat alternatives that closely resemble the taste, smell, and texture of traditional meat, several innovative companies are pushing the boundaries of food technology. Redefine Meat, for instance, is utilizing 3D printing technology to produce proteins from plants. Their process results in alternatives that closely mimic the sensory experience of consuming meat. Prime Roots harnesses koji, a traditional Asian ingredient, to grow meat alternatives in just 2-3 days, offering a sustainable and efficient approach to protein production. Meati, on the other hand, focuses on utilizing the power of fungi, particularly mushrooms, to replicate the taste and texture of meat.
The innovation happening in this space is mind-blowing. One of the most significant breakthroughs in 2025 has been the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning into the cell cultivation process. AI is now being used to: Optimize cell growth conditions, reducing the time and cost of production. Companies leveraging AI are seeing up to a 40% reduction in production costs, bringing lab-grown meat closer to price parity with conventional meat.
For the last two years, they’ve worked on a patent-pending fermentation technology that transforms mushrooms and upcycled plant proteins into mushroom-based meat substitutes that mimic pulled pork, shredded chicken and beef burgers. Its primary ingredient, “textured mushroom protein,” is a “whole-food alternative,” they add, to substitutes made of chemically isolated or concentrated soy, pea or wheat proteins. The race isn’t just about taste anymore – it’s about who can crack the code on scalable, affordable production.
The Regulatory Battlefield
Politics has entered the fake meat arena in a big way, and it’s getting messy. In the 2025 legislative session, Nebraska passed prohibitions on the sale and production of cell-cultured meat. Indiana also joined the rank of state prohibiting in-state sales and manufacturing of cell-cultured meat, but limited their moratorium to two years. Some states are literally banning lab-grown meat before most people have even tried it.
Only a handful of countries have approved the sale of lab-grown meat, including Singapore, in 2020, the United States, in 2023, and Israel in 2024. However, two US states — Florida and Alabama — have since banned cultivated meat, and none is currently available for sale in the country. In 2023, Italy became the first country to ban the sale of lab-grown meat, although the measure has since been challenged by the European Union.
Meanwhile, plant-based and mushroom-based alternatives face fewer regulatory hurdles, though they’re not completely in the clear. One of the key factors holding cultivated meat back is that it must achieve regulatory approval, as a novel food, before being sold on the market. And this is a complex and often time-consuming process. The regulatory landscape is becoming a major factor in determining which alternatives will actually make it to market.
Consumer Acceptance: The Make-or-Break Factor
Here’s the million-dollar question: are people actually willing to eat this stuff? Most of the general public has no idea what lab-grown meat is. When introduced to the idea, the answer is usually something like “Yuck!” That’s a significant hurdle for the sector to overcome, as without customers it’s going nowhere fast. The “ick factor” is real, and it’s particularly strong for lab-grown meat.
Christopher Bryant, a psychologist and honorary research fellow at the University of Bath, who studies consumer acceptance of alternative meat, says that lab-grown meat still has to win over consumers. “There’s a lot of evidence that consumer acceptance of cultivated meat is strongly associated with familiarity,” he adds. “Once a product becomes more familiar in any form, it will tend to be viewed as more normal, and therefore will tend to be more accepted.”
Plant-based options have the advantage of familiarity – people understand the concept of making food from plants. More Americans are trying to eat more plants or less meat—53 percent, according to an August 2021 Consumer Reports nationally representative survey. Mushroom-based alternatives occupy an interesting middle ground – they’re natural like plants, but with a more meat-like structure that might feel less foreign to meat-eaters.
The Global Market Reality
The market for plant-based protein alternatives is currently witnessing unprecedented growth. In 2022, its global value was estimated at a staggering $12.2 billion, with a projected compound annual growth rate of 7.3% from 2022 to 2027. That’s serious money, and it’s attracting serious investment from some very big players.
New market research forecasts that the global mycoprotein market is anticipated to reach nearly $1 billion by 2032. This is being driven by rising demand for better-quality, more sustainable, and ethical protein alternatives and mass adoption of veganism. Fungi might be the dark horse in this race, with massive potential that’s just starting to be recognized.
According to recent market analyses, the global market for lab-grown meat is projected to reach $229 billion by 2050, with an estimated CAGR of 30.8%. But here’s the catch – those projections assume the technology scales successfully and regulatory barriers fall. While investments surged in 2020–2023, funding has slowed in 2024-2025 due to concerns over cost-efficiency, regulatory roadblocks, and consumer skepticism.
The Future of Food
So where does this all lead us? The future of plant-based meat alternatives is undoubtedly promising. As the market continues to expand, we can expect even more innovation and improvement. Already, these products are becoming increasingly realistic in terms of taste, texture, and appearance. With evolving technology and ongoing research, plant-based alternatives are on the path to becoming nearly indistinguishable from their animal-based counterparts.
