Once science fiction, lab-grown meat could become a reality in some restaurants in the United States as early as this year, BTA writes.

Bosses at cultured meat companies are optimistic that meat grown in massive steel vats could be on the menu within months after a company in the industry got the go-ahead from a key regulator.

As a sign of confidence, some restaurants have appointed high-end chefs such as Argentina's Francis Malman and Spain's Jose Andres to finally showcase the quality of the meat in their high-end establishments.

But to reach its final destination - supermarket shelves, cultured meat faces major obstacles, five innovation business leaders told Reuters.

First steps towards bringing lab-engineered meat to market

The companies need to raise more funds to increase production, which will allow them to offer their "beef steaks" and "chicken breasts" at a more affordable price.

At the same time, they must overcome the reluctance of some consumers to even try lab-grown meat.

Cultured meat is derived from a small sample of cells collected from livestock, which is then fed nutrients, grown in huge steel vessels called bioreactors, and processed into something that looks and tastes like a real piece of meat.

Only one country, Singapore, has so far approved the product for retail sale.

But the United States is ready to follow suit.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in November that a cultured meat product - chicken breasts raised by California-based UPSIDE Foods - is safe for human consumption.

The company now hopes to have its product in restaurants as early as 2023 and in grocery stores by 2028, company executives said.

"UPSIDE" still needs to be inspected by the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service and get the agency's approval of its labels.

"Slaughterhouse"

At the UPSIDE facility in Emeryville, Calif., workers in lab coats stare at touchscreens and watch giant vats of water mixed with nutrients.

The meat is sourced and processed in a facility that CEO Uma Valletti calls a "slaughterhouse."

There it is inspected and tested.

The company worked with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for four years before getting the green light from the agency in November, Valletti said.

"This is a watershed moment for the industry," he added.

California-based cultured meat company GOOD Meat already has an undisclosed application pending with the agency.

Two other companies, Netherlands-based Mosa Meat and Israel-based Believer Meats, said they were in discussions with the department.

The agency declined to provide details on pending applications for cultured meat, but confirmed it is talking to multiple companies.

Regulatory approval is only the first hurdle to making cultured meat accessible to a wide range of consumers.

The biggest challenge facing the companies is growing the nascent supply chain for the nutrient mix to feed the cells and for the massive bioreactors needed to produce large quantities of cultured meat, executives said.

For now, production is limited.

The UPSIDE facility has the capacity to produce 400,000 pounds (over 180,000 kg) of cultured meat annually – a fraction of the total 106 billion pounds (nearly 50 billion kg) of conventional meat and poultry produced in the United States in 2021 , according to the North American Meat Institute, a meat industry lobby group.

If the companies can't get the funding they need to ramp up production, their product may never reach a price that competes with conventional meat, said GOOD Meat co-founder Josh Tetrick.

Scale

The cultured meat sector has so far garnered nearly $2 billion in investment worldwide, according to data compiled by the Good Food Institute (GFI), a research group focused on alternatives to conventional meat.

But it would take hundreds of millions of dollars for GOOD Meat, for example, to build bioreactors the size needed to produce meat on a large scale, Tetrick said.

Investment in the industry has so far been led by venture capital firms and large food companies.

Much of that money is headed to the United States, a "No. 1" target for cultured meat producers because of the size and wealth of the market, said Jordan Bar Am, a partner at McKinsey & Company who focuses on alternative proteins. .

Some companies are ramping up production in the US even before their products are approved by regulators.

Believer Meats plans to build a facility in North Carolina that will be operational in early 2024. It will be able to produce 22 million pounds (nearly 10 million kg) of meat annually, CEO Nicole Johnson-Hoffman said. .

And GOOD Meat has plans to increase its production in California and Singapore to 30 million pounds (over 13.6 million kg) a year.

The European Union, along with Israel and other countries, are also working on regulatory frameworks for cultured meat, but have yet to approve a product for human consumption.

Consumer Attitudes

Cultured meat companies plan to present information to consumers that their product is greener and more ethical than conventional meat cattle farming, while trying to overcome aversion to their product among some buyers.

For one thing, their product does not involve the slaughter of animals, which the companies hope will make it attractive to people avoiding meat for moral reasons.

Animals remain unharmed during the cell collection process.

Another attractive feature is that growing meat in a steel container instead of in a field can reduce the environmental impact of livestock farming, which is responsible for 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions through feed production, deforestation, manure management and intestinal fermentation (animal belching), according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Plant-based meat companies have also appealed to consumers with moral and environmental arguments, although the sector has only captured 1.4 percent of the meat market, according to a GFI report.

But cultured meat companies have the advantage of being able to claim that their product is real meat, Tetrick said.

"Probably the most important thing we've learned is that people really like meat. They probably won't eat much less of it," he added.

Still, many people are disgusted by cultured meat, said Janet Tomiyama, a health psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies people's diets.

In a 2022 study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, she found that 35 percent of meat eaters and 55 percent of vegetarians would be too disgusted to try cultured meat.

Some people may perceive this meat as "unnatural" and have a negative view of it before they even try it, she explained.

To attract hesitant buyers, companies need to be as clear as possible about how their product is made and whether it is safe to eat, said Tetrick, whose company has sold its product to restaurants in Singapore.

"You have to be transparent about it, but in a way that's still palatable," he said.

UPSIDE and GOOD Meat plan to "ignite" the taste buds of Americans by launching their products in high-end restaurants after they are approved, believing that consumers there will tolerate the higher price and have a good first impression of their flesh.

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