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Technically Speaking

Meat from a factory Near You

by Dave Trecker

he shoe has dropped. After years of development and Laboratory-grown meat is the latest
T iteration that started with veggie burgers
umpteen trials around the world, laboratory-grown meat
some years ago. The mixture of ground-up
is now approved for use in the United States. That’s right.
We’ll soon be able to buy it and eat it right here in Naples. vegetables tasted terrible and never
And that’s a big deal. caught on.
In a historic move, the FDA cleared for human consumption A big improvement came with a meat substitute made from
chicken products made from cultured animal cells. Upside Foods, a mycoprotein from fermented yeast combined with other plant
the manufacturer, can begin selling the product after inspection ingredients. Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods parlayed that
and label approval by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. into an international business that lost money almost from the
Although the regulatory approval is narrow, limited to start, in part because the food didn’t taste like real meat.
cultivated chicken made by Upside, the FDA said it is ready to Cell-grown meat does. And its process has been largely proven.
work with other companies that are developing cultured animal Neta Levon, R&D head of Aleph Farms in Israel, said, “We know
cell food. Expect approvals for cultured beef and pork in the near we can build meat tissue. The problems are scale and cost.”
future. Market introduction will be gradual. Several years ago,
Why the excitement? Christopher Kerr, chief investment officer of New Crop Capital,
There are huge downstream ramifications. an investor in future-food companies, said, “You have to be
• Factory-grown meat would eliminate the need to raise and patient… cell-based meat will enter the market slowly, but once it
slaughter billions of animals. does, it will be revolutionary.”
• Global water usage could be cut substantially and vast How did it all start? Where did cultured cell food come from?
rangelands put to other uses. Like many innovations, it came from medical research. Tissue
• The resulting meat products would have no residual pesticides engineering techniques were pioneered as a means of regenerating
or hormones. damaged skin, replacing tissue that was burned or lost to frostbite.
• Controlled manufacture would reduce the risk of It was picked up by biochemists and adapted to food in the
contamination and illness. early 2000s. The first cultured hamburger was demonstrated in
The impact on climate change could be a game-changer. 2013, and food scientists followed that up with slabs of pork and
According to the EPA, livestock and farm animals contribute 8% cultured grouper, all while perfecting the cell growth technique.
of global greenhouse gases – primarily methane from belching, The rest, as they say, is history.
flatulence and feces. Elimination or even reduction of those After approvals are obtained, startups around the world – 28 of
emissions would have a big impact on global warming. them at this writing – are poised to begin production.
Just what is lab-grown meat? It’s a remarkable achievement.
Cells from living animals are cultured, nutrients are added The question now is customer acceptance. Would you eat a
and the cells replicated in bio-reactors, generating a product with cheeseburger containing patties made in a factory? Or laboratory-
muscle, fat and connective tissue – a slab that looks and tastes like grown fish fillets? Or turkey slices that don’t come from a real
meat from a slaughtered animal. gobbler?
That’s an over-simplification, of course. The devil is in the You’ll have a chance to decide very soon. Scale-up and
details, and the process has been refined by many firms in many manufacture could begin as early as 2024.
countries over decades. Eat Just received approval in Singapore for And that’s no bull.
cell-made chicken in 2020. About the Author
Dr. Trecker is a chemist and retired Pfizer executive living in Naples.

70 Life in Naples | February 2023