Many worthy ideas never see the light of day or are left unexpressed for fear of ridicule. Enterprises need to nurture these in an enabling environment and like the burger scientists, watch the innovation happen
One food critic pronounced it “not that juicy” and another pointed to its lack of fat. The commercialization price tag upward of $10 million, and 20-year time to market, is keeping investors at bay, and maybe even in splits. It’s entirely possible that consumer groups will vilify it as franken-food or simply reject it as “yuck”. But there are many reasons why the world’s first lab-grown hamburger – declared by a global online innovation think tank as the top innovation of 2013 – is a metaphor for innovation of the highest order.