Analytical assessment of the May 2026 question bank spreadsheet, with focus on cultivated meat and precision fermentation questions. Documents the provenance of resolution dates and how our 7 candidate questions relate to existing proposals.
The tournament question bank spreadsheet (May 2026) contains approximately 45 candidate questions across several working sheets, ranging from near-term 2026 binary questions to 2045 aspirational targets. This page documents: (1) which spreadsheet rows inspired each of our 7 candidate questions, (2) where the resolution dates came from, and (3) specific feedback on the existing CM and alt-protein questions in the bank.
Five of our seven questions directly address gaps or incomplete entries in the existing bank. Two (Q5 and Q6, cultivated shrimp) are novel additions with no direct analog.
| Our question | Spreadsheet row(s) | Relationship |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 Retail chicken blend ≥10%, 2035 | Row 1021 (Sheet 7) — "blended meat options in X major restaurant chains by year Y" (Simon Newstead, ranking 10); also the near-term companion Row 18 "FURA Singapore menu by 2027" | More specific operationalization: moved from restaurants to retail, set minimum cultivated fraction (≥10%), specified G20 country, and set a 2035 horizon. The workshopped version in Row 1021 targeted Singapore restaurants near-term; we address the longer-term retail milestone. |
| Q1b Blend price ≤2×, 2033 | Grouped questions sheet — "Will cultivated meat reach price parity with conventional chicken in at least one country by Dec 31, 2030?" Also Row 1023 note: "why not just ask about the price (or price ratio) for each ingredient?" | More specific and later than the 2030 grouped question. Key differences: (a) requires a blended product (≥10% cultivated), not bare price parity for any form; (b) uses ≤2× threshold rather than strict parity; (c) 2033 resolution not 2030. The 2030 grouped question and Q1b probe different points on the price trajectory. |
| Q2 Taste equivalence test, 2035 | No direct analog — novel question | No existing analog in the question bank. Product quality and consumer acceptance are not addressed by any existing question. Q2 tracks the moment when both production viability and consumer acceptance are independently validated for the same commercial product. |
| Q3 Production cost $/kg, 2036 | Row 23 (Sheet 1) and Row 1027 (Sheet 7): "What will be the average production cost (per edible kg) of cultured chicken meat in the given years, expressed in value units, across all large-scale plants in the world?" — marked TRUE (sufficiently finalised) but with no resolution criteria, no date, and no resolution source | Direct operationalization of the unanswered question. Our Q3 adds: a specific resolution date (December 2036, anchored to the CM_01 Metaculus question), three resolution options (LLM synthesis, GFI annual report, academic TEA median), a verified source table, and a precision change — "factory-gate wet weight" rather than "per edible kg" (see note below). |
| Q4 PF egg white ≤120%, 2033 | Row 20 (Sheet 1) / Row 1023 (Sheet 7): "Which precision fermentation / cultivated food ingredients will reach price parity with animal equivalents by year X?" — marked FALSE, with Reinstein noting: "I don't think 'which' questions work in Metaculus. You'd need 1 question per ingredient." | Direct implementation of Reinstein's suggestion. We chose ovalbumin (the dominant egg white protein) as the first per-ingredient question, with a specific price benchmark (USDA AMS Egg Products Report) and a ≤120% threshold rather than strict parity. The spreadsheet note "Maybe not focused on price parity" reflects uncertainty about whether price parity is the right framing — we think it is correct for tournament purposes. |
| Q5 Cultivated shrimp minced ≤2×, 2033 | No direct analog — novel question. The shrimp welfare question in the bank (Row 8, TRUE) concerns corporate welfare commitments by EU retailers, not cultivated seafood. | The bank covers shrimp welfare (SWP corporate commitment by 2027) but has nothing on cultivated shrimp as a product. Q5 and Q6 address this gap, motivated by the animal welfare significance of shrimp production (~100 billion animals/year under high-density conditions). Row 8's question and our Q5/Q6 are complementary: one tracks reform of conventional shrimp farming; ours track replacement. |
| Q6 Cultivated shrimp whole tail ≤3×, 2038 | No direct analog — novel question | Same rationale as Q5; addresses the harder technical milestone (scaffolded tissue for whole-tail morphology vs. minced paste). |
Row 1027 uses "per edible kg" — the consumer-relevant measure. Our Q3 uses "factory-gate wet weight," which is the standard convention in techno-economic analysis (Humbird 2021, Pasitka et al. 2024) and the Unjournal's CM_01 Metaculus question. Factory-gate wet weight is the cost before downstream texturization, blending, and packaging — and is the figure most consistently reported across TEA studies. "Per edible kg" implies post-processing, which varies by product form and is harder to define consistently. We kept the TEA convention and added a note about the distinction in Q3's fine print.
Only one of our seven dates was anchored to an external source. The others were set by judgment when the questions were drafted.
| Question | Date | Source | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q3 — Production cost | Dec 2036 | Externally anchored | Anchored to the Unjournal's CM_01 Metaculus question (metaculus.com/c/unjournal/38815/), which set December 2036 as the resolution date for the pivotal production cost question. This was in turn set to align with a ~10-year forecasting horizon from the CM research prioritization work (2025–2026). |
| Q1b — Blend price ≤2× Q4 — PF egg white ≤120% Q5 — Shrimp minced ≤2× |
Dec 2033 | Judgment | Set as "medium-term achievable milestones" — 7–8 years from 2025–2026, after expected regulatory maturation but before assumed full market saturation. The spreadsheet contains a 2033 grouped question (30% plant-based dairy by 2033) which provides loose contextual grounding but was not a direct input. The spread between our Q1b (2033) and the spreadsheet's existing price parity question (2030) reflects the difference in threshold: strict parity by 2030 vs. ≤2× for a specific blended product by 2033. |
| Q1 — Retail blend ≥10% Q2 — Taste equivalence |
Dec 2035 | Judgment | Set slightly later than price/availability questions: a commercial blend product must exist before a credible taste study can be run on it. The 2-year gap between Q1b (blend available ≤2× by 2033) and Q2 (taste study by 2035) reflects this sequencing. No external anchor. |
| Q6 — Shrimp whole tail ≤3× | Dec 2038 | Judgment | Set 5 years later than Q5 (shrimp minced) because whole-tail morphology requires scaffolding advances not expected before ~2033–2035. No external anchor. |
The spreadsheet's grouped questions sheet already contains: "Will cultivated meat reach price parity with conventional chicken in at least one country by Dec 31, 2030?" If both this and our Q1b (≤2× for retail blend by 2033) are included in the tournament, participants should understand they are probing different things: the 2030 question asks about any form of CM at strict parity; Q1b asks about a specific blended product at ≤2× by 2033. Consider adding a cross-reference note, or replacing the 2030 question with a reformulated version that uses the same operationalization as Q1b but at an earlier date (e.g., ≤3× by 2030).
Near-term coverage is heavy; medium-to-long-term has significant gaps. The single most important gap is the unoperationalized production cost question (Row 1027), which is the core pivotal question for CM feasibility.
Problem: This will almost certainly resolve NO. Current cultivated meat costs are approximately $100–1,000/kg. A resolution at 1:1 price parity with conventional chicken (~$4–10/kg retail) within 6–12 months of the question being set is implausible given the state of the technology. It provides minimal information value — forecasters will place 95%+ probability on NO, and a NO resolution tells us nothing we didn't already know.
Suggestion: Either remove this question or replace it with a more tractable near-term version: "Will any cultivated meat product be commercially available at ≤50× the price of comparable conventional meat in any country by Dec 2028?" — which probes early-stage scaling rather than parity.
Clear resolution source (EFSA novel food list / EU Novel Food Union List), a specific and achievable near-term milestone, and clearly decision-relevant (informs whether to fund CM regulatory strategy in Europe). The operationalization is tight: "blended or standalone products" covers the main commercial routes. Reinstein's note flagging the existing Metaculus question on approval timelines is useful — if Metaculus has a live question on this, participants can directly compare with market-implied probabilities.
Clear resolution source (GFI tracking), a specific and tractable near-term question. The operationalization rightly specifies "bans or moratoriums" and notes that reversals don't reduce the count. One critical improvement still needed: the question must state the baseline (Florida, Alabama, and Montana had bans as of early 2026) so the question resolves to a meaningful number rather than ambiguous "additional."
The most important medium-term CM price question in the bank but currently under-specified. Missing: (1) definition of "price parity" — strict 1:1? within 20%? (2) what form of cultivated meat — standalone, blended, minced, whole muscle? (3) retail or wholesale or food service? (4) resolution source — who will be tracking CM retail prices in 2030? (5) what country counts — any single country or a major market?
Suggestion: Our Q1b is a more specific operationalization of this question for a blended product at ≤2× by 2033. For a 2030 version, a reasonable operationalization: "Will any commercially available product containing ≥50% cultivated chicken cells be sold at ≤3× the retail price of comparable conventional chicken in any G20 country by Dec 31, 2030, for at least 3 consecutive months?"
This question is marked TRUE (sufficiently finalised) in Sheet 1 and reappears in the final synthesis Sheet 7, but it has no resolution date, no resolution criteria, and no resolution source. It is the single most important CM question in the bank and the core of the Unjournal's CM_01 pivotal question work.
Our Q3 directly operationalizes this. See the forecasting candidates page for the full operationalized version with: a December 2036 resolution date (anchored to CM_01), three resolution options (LLM synthesis / GFI annual report / academic TEA median), and a verified source table. The phrase "in the given years" in the spreadsheet version also needs to be narrowed to a specific year.
Marked FALSE; Reinstein's note is correct: "which" questions don't work on Metaculus — you need one question per ingredient. Also needs operationalization for "price parity" per ingredient (different benchmarks apply: egg whites have USDA AMS quarterly spray-dried prices; dairy proteins have CME futures; growth factors lack a conventional analog entirely).
Our Q4 (PF ovalbumin ≤120% by 2033) implements the per-ingredient approach for the highest-profile PF ingredient currently in commercial development. Additional per-ingredient questions to consider: precision fermentation whey/casein proteins (cleaner benchmark: CME dairy futures), and growth factors (harder — no conventional analog for pricing).
Very specific, highly resolvable (FURA's website/menu is the resolution source), and is a reasonable near-term indicator of cultivated meat commercial momentum in Singapore — currently the most permissive regulatory environment. Low broad significance but useful as a concrete near-term milestone for Singapore-focused questions.
This question appears in both the standalone AI-generated sheet (Sheet 2) and the grouped questions sheet (Sheet 3). Deduplication needed. More substantively: given that alternative proteins were approximately 1% of global meat by value in 2024, a 50× increase in 14 years is an extremely strong claim. Most forecasters will put this at <5% probability. That's fine — aspirational questions can still be informative — but the question needs a clear resolution source: who will be publishing globally consistent "alternative protein share of global meat" data in 2040? FAO and GFI are plausible but not guaranteed to continue in current form.
The 40+ standalone questions in Sheet 2 were apparently AI-generated and are of highly variable quality. Key issues:
These are the strongest questions in the bank — well-specified, decision-relevant, with clear resolution sources (Chicken Watch tracker). The two cage-free commitment questions (Rows 12–13) are among the most immediately actionable questions in the set. Reinstein's note "I'm surprised there is no Metaculus market for this one already!" is worth acting on.
Generally under-specified resolution sources (who is tracking screwworm cases in Mexico? what is the definitive database?). The WAI funding question (Row 6) is well-specified (ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer). The wild animal welfare spending question (Row 22) needs specificity about what counts and whose reports will be used.
Aspirational questions spanning farmed animal numbers, legal personhood, AI governance, and insect farming. Most lack fallback resolution sources. For any question resolving after 2035, the resolution methodology should specify (1) what happens if the primary source (GFI, FAO, etc.) no longer publishes the relevant data, and (2) whether a moderator judgment or community median serves as fallback.
Operationalize Row 1027 (production cost question) using our Q3 specification, or a modified version. This is the most important CM question and currently has no resolution criteria or date. It cannot be used in a tournament as-is.
Remove or replace the "OECD price parity by 2026" standalone question. It will almost certainly resolve NO and provides no information. Replace with a more tractable near-term cost question (e.g., "Will any CM product be commercially available at ≤20× conventional price in any country by 2028?").
Add resolution criteria to all Sheet 2 questions before finalizing. At minimum, specify: what source resolves the question, what exactly constitutes YES, and what happens if the source is unavailable. Questions without any resolution criteria text should be removed from the tournament shortlist.
Operationalize the 2030 price parity grouped question using our Q1b structure (or a 2030 version at ≤3×). The current phrasing is too vague for Metaculus. Consider: "Will any product with ≥50% cultivated chicken cells be available at retail for ≤3× conventional chicken price in any G20 country by Dec 2030, sustained for ≥3 months?"
Add the state baseline to the US cultivated meat ban question. State the count as of question creation (e.g., "Currently, 3 US states (FL, AL, MT) have enacted such bans. How many additional states will do so by Feb 28, 2027?") so resolution is unambiguous.
Deduplicate the "50% global alt protein by 2040" question, which appears in both Sheet 2 and Sheet 3. Identify the canonical version and add a fallback resolution source for a 2040 resolution (who will be reporting global protein shares in 2040?).
A bridging near-term question for cultivated meat cost (2027–2028) that sits between the current "parity by 2026" (unrealistic) and our Q1b (2033): for example, "Will any company publicly report a production cost under $50/kg for cultivated chicken cell biomass by Dec 2028?" This gives tournament participants a near-term cost signal.
Per-ingredient PF price questions for casein and whey (the precision fermentation dairy proteins), following the same structure as our Q4 for ovalbumin. The CME dairy futures market provides clean price benchmarks. These would complement the existing EU authorization question (binary) with a continuous price question.