I think we have to look beyond just the vegan market - I perceive it to be about about reuniting the vegan and non vegan markets by replacing the supply chain o

I think we have to look beyond just the vegan market - I perceive it to be about about reuniting the vegan and non vegan markets by replacing the supply chain of the actual target food to comply with veganism further down the road. As a business opportunity, the potential for growth is not limited to a relatively small percentage of the population who take on the personal baggage to hold themselves to a vegan diet (though they are a critical evangelistic user base to start from), it's to corner the entire market by making it cheap, patentable and ubiquitous. The promise of environmental benefits helps to encourage investment from all camps open to the notion. The hope that it might bear fruit would for many outweigh any risks they see, because there's a 100% chance the sky will fall, displacing sea levels upwards if we don't do enough to control our impact on it, and a less than 100% chance that this research will backfire enough in this department to not be worth exploring. You'd have to be either be highly risk-averse about some physical possibility like pollenization/natural immunity/unforeseen consequences (prepare for them), or have some kind of philosophical/religious reason at a metaphysical level to oppose it.