Lab-grown meat is expected to hit supermarket shelves soon. In a press release published on November 16, the US Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave the green light to Upside Foods, a company specializing in the production of cultured meat, to market its synthetic chicken.
If it is deemed safe for human consumption by the public health authority, it will still need to pass some regulatory testing before being released to the market. But this FDA approval represents an essential first step.
To produce this cultured meat, the Californian company takes live cells from chickens, before cultivating them in a controlled laboratory. The result is cultured meat, that is, meat produced without any animal having been slaughtered.
A positive message for all players in the sector
With this clearance, the FDA is not content to give Upside Foods a first sesame. It also sent a positive message to all companies in the sector saying that it was ready to approve the sale of other lab-grown meats.
It could also come out in favor of the commercialization of seafood, grown in the laboratory from cells of marine life.
A greener alternative to traditional agriculture?
Cultured meat production appears as an alternative to traditional farming, particularly beef cattle, whose colossal impact on the environment is regularly pointed out. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), this agricultural activity is responsible for 14.5% of the greenhouse gas emissions that are emitted each year.
And if many start-ups have launched into the niche in recent years (there were 70, according to figures from the American NGO Good Food Institute for 2021), the environmental impact of meat from stem cells remains difficult to measure.
For the first time, a March 2021 study by the Dutch firm CE Delft, specializing in the environment, and cited by The world, had attempted to quantify this impact using data from start-ups specializing in the manufacture of cultured meat. However, this paper concludes that the ecological footprint of cultured meat, when produced with a standard energy mix, is less important than that of beef. On the other hand, it exceeds that of poultry and pork, which emit less than beef.
Regulatory obstacles
But optimizing production methods for lab-grown meat could be a game changer. Assuming the production of synthetic meat using exclusively carbon-free energy, the study shows that its environmental impact would be lower than that of all traditional meats, and not just beef.
Despite this, cellular agriculture still struggles to overcome the many regulatory hurdles that separate it from mass distribution. Singapore is the first country to allow the sale of cultured meat products, at the end of 2020. Since then, no other state has taken the step. But the United States could go on.
According to The Guardianhowever, it will take a few months before the meat produced in the laboratory reaches American supermarkets.
Source: BFM TV
