You'll Be Eating Lab-Grown Meat in 3 Years

Lab-Grown Meat: You'll Be Eating it Within 3 Years

It's pretty fair to say that we often underestimate the speed at which technology develops. And although many of us remember the first lab-grown burger cooked and eaten for $325,000 in 2013, it seemed like it'd take at least several years, or maybe even a couple decades before we could be seeing this kind of thing on our dinner plates. But oh contraire. Lab-grown meat is becoming a reality quicker than we may have thought. And here are a handful of companies making that happen.

Impossible Foods

Founded in 2011, it's backed by the likes of Bill Gates, Li Ka-shing and a Facebook founder. And for good reason too. After all, Impossible Foods is known for bringing us the plant burger that bleeds.

To make this happen, they simply replace heme, the molecule in normal meat that makes it bleed, with leghemoglobin a protein found in soybeans. Then, by mixing it with a blend of wheat protein, potato protein and coconut oil, they make a plant-based burger that not only behaves like real meat on the grill, but tastes like it too- at least according to Tom Krazit from Geekwire.

And they’re growing fast. In September 2017, the company opened a new factory in California, bringing their total production to 1 million pounds of meat per month- an increase of 250 times on what they were making previously. And the best part- they're already available in 284 restaurants across the US for around $20 each- including one in Hawaii!

Although it looks like the company will fall short of its goal to be in 1,000 restaurants by the end of this year, their founder is still ambitious with hopes to expand into fish, eggs and dairy. In fact, in an interview with CNBC he said, "Our mission is to completely replace animals in the food system."

Memphis Meats

Founded in 2015, Memphis Meats took just one year to churn out its first lab-grown meatball. And it took just a year and a half more for its first lab-grown crispy fried chicken and duck à l’orange.

And these guys move so fast, they're even causing the meat industry to buckle. Cargill, one of the US's big four meat producers recently sold off the last of its cattle feedlots to focus more on proteins- including an investment in Memphis Meats.

Unlike Impossible Foods' glamorous heme story though, Memphis Meats is less sensationalist about its process- nurturing animal cells that can grow into meat in what looks like a beer brewery.

The company does however claim that their methods require 90% less land, water and gas emissions than conventionally produced meats. And on top of this, they have apparently overcome one of the biggest hurdles in the lab-grown meat industry- bovine serum. Extracted from the blood of dead unborn calves to kickstart cell division, the company has reportedly validated a production method that does not require any serum.

But alas. Despite their lightening-speed progress, we won't be able to eat their lab-grown delicacies anytime too soon. And although we won't have to wait too long- the start-up said its meats will be available by 2021- I find myself already craving a technically duckless duck à l'orange. The only solace in it all being a little while off is that it gives them some time to make it all more friendly on the pocket. For example. they aim to reduce the price of their chicken from $9,000 per pound right now to a more digestible $3.22 within three years.

Finless Foods

Founded in 2016, Finless Foods is a one-woman, three-man bio-tech company on a mission. With 53% of the world’s fish stocks already gone, they aim to meet the world’s increasing demand for fish- and not by giving a man a fishing rod- but by producing fish meat from cell cultures instead.

First off, they have a pretty cool way to find their cell samples. Whenever a fish dies in their local aquarium in San Francisco, they pick it up by car and drive it back to their beer brewery-style lab. They then feed clusters of its cells a mix of salts, carbohydrates and proteins to allow them to grow into fully-fledged slabs of fish fillet.

Despite the company's young age, it's already produced prototypes, as tasted by Amy Fleming at the Guardian. Although mixed with potato, she was able to detect "a pleasant aftertaste of the sea, though not fish as such"- but this was fine as it was just a preliminary taste test.

Happily for us, the start-up says that its first blue-fin tuna product will be ready for the market in either 2019 or 2020. Until then, aside from further refining their fish filets, they are also in search for a replacement for bovine serum in their products.

Conclusion

It's comforting to know that we'll be soon be able to enjoy the same tastes we get with our antibiotic and hormone-inflated meats with both a clearer conscience for our health and the knowledge that no animals had to be sacrificed for our cravings.

But even more importantly, companies like these offer hope to never be disappointed again when turning up to a vegan barbecue- and of course guarantee food security while they're at it.

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Now over to you. What do you think is the future of lab-grown meats? Would you eat them? Let's talk about it in the comments section!

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