The US Department of Agriculture has approved two companies to sell chicken grown directly from animal cells, making the US the second country to allow lab-grown meat to be offered to consumers.
The United States has granted its first-ever approvals to two companies to sell chicken grown directly from animal cells, becoming only the second country to allow lab-grown meat to be offered to consumers.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved food safety systems at facilities of Upside Foods and Good Meat, a spokesperson for the agency told AFP Wednesday, with the companies adding the products would be available soon at select restaurants.
Both Upside Foods and Good Meat were cleared on safety grounds by the Food and Drug Administration in November, and the USDA last week reviewed and approved their product labels to ensure they were not misleading.
Josh Tetrick, CEO of Good Meat, Eat Just’s cell-cultured food division, added that its “cultivated meat” was now “approved to sell to consumers in the world’s largest economy.”
Producing meat in large, high-quality volumes is expensive.
But, following approval, Upside processed its first order, placed by three-Michelin-star Chef Dominique Crenn’s restaurant Bar Crenn in San Francisco.
Several start-ups aim to produce the so-called lab-grown meat, allowing humans to consume animal protein without the associated environmental harms of farming or animal suffering.
The products differ from plant-based substitutes such as soy burgers that mimic the texture and flavor of the meat but do not contain any animal protein.
Eat Just was the first to receive authorization to make artificial meat in Singapore in 2020.
Eco-friendly? Perhaps not.
While lab-grown meat has been billed as an environmentally friendly alternative, researchers from the University of California, Davis pushed back against this assumption in a study out last month, which hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed.
They found cultivated meat’s environmental impact is likely to be “orders of magnitude” higher, at least in the case of beef, based on production methods.
This is because of the energy required and greenhouse gasses emitted across all stages of production.
Miroslava Salazar with AFP
