Cellular agriculture points the way to removing killing from the food chain

Here's a story from the Washington Post about growing fish-flesh and meat from cells in a lab. The story emphasizes sustainability, but this may be a process that could one day return fish and poultry to the diets of ethical vegetarians. (Of course this is one of those things that could be coming tomorrow and always will be...)

No bones, no scales, no problem: The first lab-grown salmon sold in the U.S.  Wildtype’s cell-cultivated salmon is the first seafood to earn FDA approval, marking a significant milestone for the alternative protein industry.  By Allyson Chiu

"The Coho salmon, pinkish orange and streaked with lines of white fat, wasn’t wild-caught in Alaska or farmed in Chile. It comes from cells grown in tanks at a former microbrewery in San Francisco, and in late May it became the first cell-cultured seafood to receive safety approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

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"At least two lab-grown chicken products have previously gotten the FDA’s green light. But the okay for the salmon, made by California-based Wildtype, marks a significant milestone for the alternative protein industry, which has been working to produce substitutes for traditional meat and fish that can help meet the world’s growing demand for food while minimizing environmental and climate impacts. "

Eliminating cruelty (and methane) from the food chain: lab-grown ("no-kill") meat

 The Guardian has the story:

World’s largest vats for growing ‘no-kill’ meat to be built in US by Damian Carrington

"The building of the world’s largest bioreactors to produce cultivated meat has been announced, with the potential to supply tens of thousands of shops and restaurants. Experts said the move could be a “gamechanger” for the nascent industry.

"The US company Good Meat said the bioreactors would grow more than 13,000 tonnes of chicken and beef a year. It will use cells taken from cell banks or eggs, so the meat will not require the slaughter of any livestock.

"There are about 170 companies around the world working on cultured meat, but Good Meat is the only company to have gained regulatory approval to sell its product to the public. It began serving cultivated chicken in Singapore in December 2020.

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"“I think our grandchildren are going to ask us about why we ate meat from slaughtered animals back in 2022,” said Josh Tetrick, the chief executive of Good Meat’s parent company, Eat Just.

“Cultivated meat matters because it will enable us to eat meat without all the harm, without bulldozing forests, without the need to slaughter an animal, without the need to use antibiotics, without accelerating zoonotic diseases.

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"Cultivated meat has not yet been approved for sale by the US Food and Drug Administration. 

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"Another cultivated meat company, Upside Foods, raised $400m in April, in part to fund a commercial-scale facility to produce thousands of tonnes of meat a year.

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"Other companies with facilities for cultivated meat include SuperMeat, Mosa Meat, Future Meat Technologies and the seafood producers Wildtype and Shiok Meats. There are also many companies making plant-based meat replacements."

Laboratory grown meat: coming ...soon?

For omnivores concerned about cruelty in the food supply, laboratory grown meat offers an attractive possibility.  It's being explored in many places: here's an optimistic recent story that caught my eye on an Israeli Lab Meat Startup.

"Future Meat Technologies is developing a manufacturing platform for the production of meat products directly from animal cells. By the end of 2018, Future Meats intends to have a dish based on its cultured chicken meat served at a Jerusalem chef restaurant, the company’s chief scientist Yaakov Nahmias said in an interview with Calcalist Wednesday. The company is set to launch its first line of meat products by 2020, he said.

"Founded in February, Future Meat Technologies sprung from research conducted at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem by a team led by Mr. Nahmias. The technology is licensed to the company by the university's knowledge transfer company Yissum Research Development.


"Companies producing lab-cultured meat state that in addition to eliminating the need to raise animals for slaughter, lab-grown meat products reduce exposure to food-borne illnesses and reduce pollution and water consumption.


"The world’s first cultured beef hamburger was grown at a Maastricht University lab in 2013 by Mosa Meat, a Maastricht, the Netherlands-based company backed by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Other companies have since attempted to create meat from single cells.


"New York-based early-stage biotechnology startup Finless Foods Inc. is aiming to develop and mass manufacture lab-cultured alternatives to conventionally-caught and commercially-farmed seafood. San Francisco-based Memphis Meats produces beef, chicken, and duck products by culturing animal cells, and released the world’s first cultured meatball in February 2016 and the world’s first cultured poultry in March 2017.

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"The first lab-grown burger, produced in 2013, cost about $2.3 million per kilogram. The price of cultured meat production has since plummeted. Production costs for Future Meats currently stand at $500 per kilo, and the company aims to reach a $5 per kilo cost by 2020, Mr. Nahmias said."