Reclaiming Lab-Grown

“Lab-grown meat”, while factually incorrect, was one hell of a fear-mongering campaign. Not quite as good as Green Peace’s genetically-modified smear run, but pretty good. So when launching Forged into Australia, we took the opportunity to rename and reclaim the category on our home turf. Forged classified the category as “cultured”, over the standard “cultivated”. Trouble was, the category already had an umbrella name and it wasn’t ours, or our competitors. “Lab-grown meat”, born in the US at the rise of the category, dominated.

So we kept our story simple and told it everywhere. Different meats that complement traditional meats. New meats, not replacements. New proteins for your plate. Not another chicken nugget. Not a replacement for your steak. Soon people were eating it, people were buying it, but they were still saying “lab-grown” anyway.

Rather than correct them, we made it the hook (controversial). Rather than give in to the rhetoric, we continued sharing our story (one must imagine Sisyphus happy). Premium and craveable, never a substitute. We sent the brief out twice. One to creators ingrained in the cultural-zeitgeist, the other to news outlets. Every piece opened on the phrase we couldn’t escape, the L-word, for a “wait, what?” moment we then flipped into “oh, well actually” reframe.

At the end of 2025, the FSANZ’s (Food Standards Australia New Zealand) 2025 Consumer Insights Tracker found Australians perceived cultured meat as “a complement to, rather than a replacement for, traditional meat”. Only 1 in 5 who would eat it, said they saw it as replacing traditional meat outright. The story FSANZ was hearing back was our Forged brand story.

First, the creators. We ran an influencer campaign with food and lifestyle creators, eager for a conversation on reframing the taboo. Every piece opened with the L-word, surfaced in the first few seconds; and the hook worked. Leading with “lab grown” lifted both views and education. The three month campaign hit our mark, with 87 to 90% of viewers Australian, more than half aged 25 to 34, and Reels analytics sitting well ahead of TikTok.

Then, the press. We took the same story to news outlets, shouting “complement not replacement” across SBS Food, Urban List, Time Out, Broadsheet, and the Daily Telegraph. Even Queensland Country Life, a right-leaning publication for the very farmers our opponents rhetoric said we were here to replace, quoted Forged as “not an imitation, but a new category of food that complements local farming”.

One small step for our brand, one giant leap for the future security of our food systems.