On Wednesday, U.S. officials allowed the sale of chicken created from animal cells for the first time, allowing two California companies to deliver “lab-grown” poultry to the nation’s restaurant tables and, eventually, supermarket shelves.
The Agriculture Department approved Upside Foods and Good Meat, which had been racing to be the first in the United States to sell meat that didn’t come from slaughtered animals — what’s now known as “cell-cultivated” or “cultured” meat as it emerges from the laboratory and arrives on dinner tables.
The move ushers in a new era of meat production geared at minimising animal suffering and substantially decreasing the environmental implications of grazing, growing animal feed, and animal waste.
“Instead of all of that land and all of that water that’s used to feed all of these animals that are slaughtered, we can do it in a different way,” said Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just, which operates Good Meat.
The companies were granted approval for government inspections needed to sell meat and poultry in the United States. The lawsuit comes months after the US Food and Drug Administration determined that both companies’ goods are safe to eat.
The goods will also be manufactured by Joinn Biologics, which collaborates with Good Meat.
Cells from a living animal, a fertilized egg, or a unique bank of stored cells are used to develop cultivated meat in steel tanks.
In the case of Upside, it is produced in big sheets that are subsequently molded into shapes such as chicken cutlets and sausages.
Good Meat, the first company to commercialize produced meat in Singapore, transforms masses of chicken cells into cutlets, nuggets, shredded meat, and stays.
But don’t expect to see this new meat in American grocery stores anytime soon.
Cultivated chicken is far more expensive than meat from entire, farmed birds and cannot currently be produced on the same scale as traditional meat, according to Ricardo San Martin, head of the University of California Berkeley’s Alt: Meat Lab.
The companies intend to serve the new food first in elite restaurants: Upside has teamed with a San Francisco restaurant named Bar Crenn, while Good Meat meals will be served at a restaurant run by chef and owner Jose Andrés in Washington, D.C.
Officials at the company are careful to point out that the goods are meat, not meat alternatives like the Impossible Burger or Beyond Meat offerings, which are produced from plant proteins and other substances.
More than 150 companies worldwide are working on meat from cells, including not only chicken but also hog, lamb, fish, and cattle, which scientists say has the greatest environmental impact.
Upside is headquartered in Berkeley and operates a 70,000-square-foot facility in adjacent Emeryville. Visitors entered a pristine commercial kitchen on a recent Tuesday, where chef Jess Weaver was sauteeing a farmed chicken fillet in a white wine butter sauce with tomatoes, capers, and green onions.
The resulting chicken breast product was a shade lighter than the supermarket variety. Aside from that, it looked, cooked, smelled, and tasted like any other pan-fried poultry.
“The most common response we get is, ‘Oh, it tastes like chicken,'” Upside’s chief operating officer Amy Chen said.
Good Meat, situated in Alameda, is a 100,000-square-foot facility where chef Zach Tyndall served a smoked chicken salad on a warm June afternoon.
He then placed a chicken “thigh” over potato puree with a mushroom-vegetable demi-glace and tiny purple cauliflower florets.
The Good Meat chicken product will be pre-cooked and ready to use in a variety of meals.
Chen recognised that many people are sceptical, if not fearful, about eating chicken developed from cells.
“We call it the’ick factor,'” she explained.
A recent poll done by The Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research echoed this sentiment. Half of all adults in the United States said they are unlikely to test meat made from animal cells. When asked to give a reason for their aversion, the majority of those who said they’d be unlikely to try it responded “it just sounds weird.” Approximately half of those polled believe it would be unsafe.
People are more accepting of the meat if they learn how it is produced, according to Chen. And once they’ve tried it, they’re usually hooked.
“It’s the meat you’ve always known and loved,” she explained.
Cells are the starting point for cultivated meat. Upside experts select cells from live animals that are most likely to taste delicious and reproduce quickly and consistently, resulting in high-quality meat, according to Chen. A master cell bank derived from a commercially accessible chicken cell line is used to make Good Meat products.
After the cell lines are chosen, they are mixed with a broth-like mixture that contains the amino acids, fatty acids, carbohydrates, salts, vitamins, and other nutrients that cells require to develop. Cells proliferate rapidly inside the tanks known as cultivators.
Muscle and connective tissue cells grow together to create huge sheets at Upside. The sheets of poultry cells are removed from the tanks after about three weeks and moulded into cutlets, sausages, or other delicacies. Good Meat cells form enormous masses that are moulded into a variety of meat products.
Both companies stressed that initial output will be restricted. According to Upside officials, the Emeryville plant can produce up to 50,000 pounds of cultured beef products per year, with the intention of increasing to 400,000 pounds per year. Officials at Good Meat did not estimate a production target.
In comparison, the United States produces approximately 50 billion pounds of chicken every year.
According to Sebastian Bohn, a cell-based foods specialist at CRB, a Missouri firm that designs and builds facilities for pharmaceutical, biotech, and food industries, it could take a few years before consumers see the items at more restaurants and seven to ten years before they enter the wider market.
Another stumbling block will be the cost. The price of a single chicken cutlet has been decreased by orders of magnitude since the companies began conducting demonstrations, according to neither Upside nor Good Meat officials. The price is likely to eventually match that of high-end organic chicken, which can retail for up to $20 per pound.
San Martin is concerned that cultured meat will become a rich people’s alternative to traditional meat, but will accomplish little for the environment if it remains a niche product.
“It’s fine if some high-end or affluent people want to eat this instead of chicken,” he remarked. “Does that mean you’ll feed poor people chicken?” “I really don’t see it.”
Tetrick expressed concern about the problems of generating a cheap, innovative beef product for the rest of the globe. However, he highlighted that traditional meat production is so harmful to the environment that an alternative — preferably one that does not necessitate giving up meat entirely — is required.
“I miss meat,” said Tetrick, who grew up eating chicken wings and barbeque in Alabama. “There should be a different way that people can enjoy chicken, beef, and pork with their families.”
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