Britain says no to lab-grown meat hitting supermarket shelves
Key Points
- 44% of Brits say cell-cultivated meat should not be sold in the UK, versus 34% in favour
- 56% would refuse to eat lab-grown meat even if authorised, per FSA tracker data
- Willingness to try it rose only slightly in a year, from 26% to 29%
- 76% recognise the term lab-grown meat but only 52% know cell-cultivated meat
- No cell-cultivated products are currently authorised for sale in the UK
44% of Brits believe cell-cultivated meat should not go on sale in the UK, against 34% who think it should, according to the Food Standards Agency.
The findings appear in the FSA’s Consumer Insights Tracker end of year report, published on Thursday (16 July), based on monthly YouGov surveys of around 2,000 adults across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The cell-cultivated meat questions last ran in October 2025.
Cell-cultivated products, more commonly known as lab-grown meat, are made by taking cells from animals or plants and growing them into food without slaughter or traditional farming.
No such products are currently authorised for human consumption in the UK, though the FSA is actively researching their safety and has run coordinated public communications on the technology since October 2024.
Most Brits would not eat it themselves
Public resistance extends beyond the shop shelf to the plate.
Over half of respondents (56%) said they would not be willing to include cell-cultivated meat in their diet if it were authorised for sale, compared with 29% who would. A further 15% said they did not know.
That reluctance has barely moved despite growing exposure to the technology. The share opposed to sale stood at 46% in October 2024 and 44% a year later, while willingness to eat the product edged up only slightly, from 26% to 29%, over the same period.
The research also exposes a naming gap and issues around perception. When shown definitions, 76% of respondents recognised the term lab-grown meat, but only 52% recognised cell-cultivated meat and 50% cell-cultivated products, the terms regulators and producers prefer.
The FSA notes that hesitancy may partly reflect unfamiliarity, with a significant share of respondents answering don’t know across the novel foods questions.
The pattern repeats for other emerging food technologies in the report, where 44% of Brits said they would not eat precision-fermented dairy against 26% who would.
The findings comes as the FSA continues work on a regulatory pathway that could eventually bring cell-cultivated products to the UK market, suggesting approval may arrive well before public appetite does.
