"How the Cattle Industry Is Fighting Against #FakeMeat"

The real concern of the protein peeps is that the big-money-types (Gates, Khosla, Li Ka-Shing et al) backing the stuff might start throwing their political weight around, as noted a couple weeks ago in "Companies Are Betting on Lab-Grown Meat, but None Know How to Get You to Eat It":

The dream of any right-thinking change agent is to mandate that people use your product.
If that approach is not feasible the fallback is to tax the competition

Here at Totalitarian Marketing Group we supply strategies for the power-mad while making life easier for the top 0.0000001%. TMG, when nudge just isn't fast enough....

To insure a seat at the table, so to speak, the processors, including the largest, Tyson, are also investing.
Here's the latest from Mel Magazine:

Plant-based companies are giving the beef industry a run for their money — and cattle ranchers are starting to worry

Oh, it’s on: The nation’s largest cattle industry lobby group (the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association) recently filed a petition with the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to prevent plant-based protein companies (like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods) from using the terms “meat” and “beef” to label their products.

“The labels of ‘beef’ or ‘meat’ should inform consumers that the product is derived naturally from animals as opposed to alternative proteins such as plants and insects or artificially grown in a laboratory,” the petition states, arguing that consumers are being misled into buying plant-based proteins that have the terms “meat” or “beef” somewhere on their packaging, like Trader Joe’s “Beef-less Ground Beef.”

On the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association Facebook page, one commenter sums up their beef with beef-less products pretty well:

Admittedly, this could maybe be an issue for some people. A two-year-old Reddit post asks for better terms to describe “fake meat,” noting that some customers were confused by fake lamb, chicken and steak products being served at their family member’s cafe. Other Redditors chimed in, suggesting “faux,” “mock” and the simple (but effective) “plant-based protein.”

The increasingly popular Beyond Burger has “Plant-Based Burger Patties” printed in bold, green font on their packaging. Yet, the Cattlemen’s Association presumably takes issue with their company name — Beyond Meat — since it might suggest they’re selling actual animal flesh.

More specifically, though, the Cattlemen’s Association is concerned that consumers are increasingly opting for plant-based protein, because they’re being tricked into thinking plant-based “meat” and “beef” is the real thing — an argument that appears to thoroughly doubt the common sense of American consumers.

It’s true that more and more Americans are turning to plant-based proteins, but not because they can’t understand product labels: According to recent data from HealthFocus International, a market research and strategic consulting company, 60 percent of of U.S. consumers claim to be reducing their consumption of meat-based products. Of that 60 percent, 55 percent report that the change toward a predominantly plant-based diet is permanent, while another 22 percent hope that they can maintain it. Considering this trend, Allied Market Research expects that the plant-based industry will garner $5.2 billion in sales by 2020, meaning you can expect more “fake meat” products to hit the shelves over the next couple of years....MUCH MORE