With the high environmental cost of farm animals, food scientists have been looking for other ways to give us protein. Some say plant-based alternatives are the future, but others have been growing meat in laboratories. Lab-grown meat, or “cultivated protein”, uses real animal cells but, rather than being part of a living animal, the cells are grown in a bioreactor. In Singapore in 2020, chicken nuggets made by the US start-up Eat Just became the first lab-grown meat to be sold commercially.
However, despite big investments, cultivated-protein start-ups are struggling. Eat Just’s CEO, Josh Tetrick, told the Financial Times: “If your interest is maximizing profitability in the early years, you should never start a cultivated-meat company.” The problems include unclear regulation in many countries, technology challenges and high production costs. And then, there’s the question of what consumers think. Awareness of the product is still low, but Tetrick is optimistic, saying he wants to make lab-grown meat “the boring, everyday meat we all consume”.