The problem with this is lifestyle inflation.

Pre-industrial technologies will only get us pre-industrial amounts of meat, which has to be split between the current population.

There's a lot of people who probably won't be very happy with only being able to afford meat once or twice a week. That seems like a surefire way to trigger a backlash.

this is always used as an argument for new technologies instead of returning to lower tech, pre-industrial solutions that are already well established and known to be safer

Maybe because it's about economical efficiency. The old ways were abandoned in favor of new methods, because the new approach was cheaper / yielded higher profits.

Yes, we could produce meat like we did in pre-industrial times, but that would mean higher prices or lower volume. Either way, it would mean less people could afford to eat meat. Like in pre-industrial times.