A Washington restaurant run by Spanish chef José Andrés will soon have a dish made with lab-grown chicken on its menu. The chef is an ally of Good Meat, one of two US companies that received final approval to sell their artificial chicken meat from the Department of Agriculture on Wednesday. With this, the United States heralds an era of uncertain future in the food sector.
In the United States and many other countries, imitating or replacing meat with plant-based proteins and other ingredients has become popular, with products suitable for vegans and brands like Impossible Burger, Beyond Meat, and many others. What is approved now is completely different. This is chicken meat without chicken, i.e. tissue grown in the laboratory from chicken cells, but without slaughtered animal and without bones, organs, feathers or beak.
Cultured meat is grown in steel tanks filled with water, salt, and nutrients, using cells from a live animal, a fertilized egg, or a special bank of stored cells. The production process from cell culture involves the proliferation or multiplication of the cells, their differentiation so that they acquire muscle characteristics, and the recovery or collection of the cellular material for conventional food processing.
The idea is to usher in a new era in meat production that aims to eliminate animal harm and slaughter, and drastically reduce the environmental impact of grazing, growing animal feed and animal waste.
East Just Laboratory, the Good Meat Group, in Alameda, California. Associated Press/LaPresse
The FDA had already given the new product the green light, but awaited inspections and the final green light from the Department of Agriculture for marketing. Two California-based companies, Good Meat and Upside Foods, announced Wednesday that they had received it. In Upside’s case, lab-raised meat is made in large slabs, which are then molded into shapes like chicken fillets and sausages. Good Meat is already selling cultured meat in Singapore, the first country to allow it, and is mass-processing chicken cells into fillets, nuggets, shredded meat and skewers.
Good Meat, the cultured meat division of food technology company Eat Just, has celebrated in a statement a move it sees as “significant” for the “emerging” cultured meat and seafood sector and for the global food industry. “This breakthrough clearance means the company’s chicken, which is made directly from animal cells, can now be sold to US consumers,” he said.
In fact, Good Meat, based in the city of Alameda, already has several approvals for its chicken meat, granted in Singapore in 2020 and 2021, where it is usually marketed through various channels. It received a license in January 2023, which the company sees as key to paving the way for more scalability, lower manufacturing costs and a more sustainable product. Now the company is getting US approval for its plant in Alameda, the city where it is headquartered. Its production partner Joinn Biologics also receives approval.
Upside Foods is the other company to have completed the regulatory review process prior to placing its breeding chickens on the market. “Because breeding chicken is developed directly from real chicken cells, the company is subject to strict controls and food safety standards similar to those of conventionally produced poultry,” the company said in a statement.
Once regulatory approval is received, Upside Foods can begin commercial production. The company has announced that it will debut a full-texture chicken product containing more than 99% cultured chicken cells.
Eat Just Lab in Alameda, California. The letters on the glass spell out the company’s goal: that cultured meat should be the most consumed meat in the world. Jeff Chiu (AP)
Berkeley-based Upside Foods became the first company to receive Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval last November after a thorough review of the product and manufacturing process. According to the information provided by the FDA at the time, there was no reason to believe that the production process would result in food containing or containing adulterating substances or microorganisms.
“At this point we have no doubts about Upside’s conclusion that feeds consisting of or containing cultured chicken cell material originate from the defined production process […] They are just as safe as similar foods made using other methods,” the FDA report concludes. The dossier presented by the company describes in detail the production process.
“I am pleased to announce that cultured meat will now be available to consumers in the United States,” Uma Valeti, CEO and founder of Upside Foods, said in a statement Wednesday. “This approval will radically change the way meat gets on our table. “It’s a big step towards a more sustainable future that preserves choice and lives,” he added.
Upside also has his ally Koch. Following regulatory approval, the company has received its first order for its farm-raised chicken from three-Michelin-star chef Dominique Crenn. The company’s farm-raised chicken will be released in limited quantities through select restaurant partners in the United States, beginning with Chef Crenn’s Bar Crenn restaurant in San Francisco, the company announced, launching a social media contest for Consumers who want to try their lab chicken.
Upside completed a placement in April 2022 raising $400 million of capital at a price that valued the company at over $1,000 million. Lab meat is expected to be big business in the future. Today it is much more expensive to produce than traditional meat, making it even more difficult to market than cultural resistance. At best, it will be years before cultured meat is commercialized on a large scale. Consulting firm McKinsey projects the size of the cultured meat market could reach $25 billion by 2030.
There are dozens of companies around the world researching and testing cultured chicken, pork, lamb, fish, and beef, although some of these meats are more difficult to reproduce than chicken, so the texture and flavor are preserved. These companies include Meatable and Mosa Meat from the Netherlands, where the process of making laboratory meat was invented. After Singapore and the United States, regulators in Israel, Switzerland and the United Kingdom are also considering approval, while the European Union, where cultured meat was invented, is in danger of falling behind.
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