The food industry in the United States has just taken a step that could transform the sector in the future. Two different companies have obtained the licenses to market chicken meat that is produced without raising these animals: it is grown in stainless steel tanks from real animal cells. It is not a vegan or vegetarian food. It’s 99 percent chicken meat and tastes the same.
The Californian companies Upside Foods and Good Meat will be able to start selling their “cell-grown meat”, which is developed through a fermentation process in bioreactors. The first two establishments where you can taste this chicken meat are Bar Crenn – despite the name, it is a restaurant with three Michelin stars – in San Francisco, and in one of the restaurants that the Spanish chef José Andrés has in Washington.
Until now, the only country that had authorized the marketing of this type of food was Singapore. In the United States, two licenses are required: that of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates food safety, and that of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which controls processing, packaging and food labelling, and that is what has just given free rein to the consumption of farmed chicken meat to the two companies.
To create cultured chicken meat, the first step is to obtain a sample of cells from a fertilized chicken egg. From the millions of cells it contains, those considered best are selected for constant meat production. From this step a cell line is established and a large master cell bank is created which is kept frozen and from which samples are taken for culture.
Cultured meat is made in steel tanks by feeding one of those cell lines in a grower that receives a nutrient mixture containing water, sugars, amino acids, vitamins, minerals and salt, the same type of nutrients that the cells would receive in the body of the animal.
In the first FDA reviews, the two companies explained that they used bovine serum albumin in the growth media, although they now explain that they have developed ways to develop the meat without the need to resort to this type of animal component .
José Andrés Andrés joined the Good Meat Board of Directors in December 2021. “We need to innovate, adapt our food to a planet in crisis. to create meals that nourish people while sustaining our communities and the environment,” explains the chef on the company’s website.
Production for now will be small and more expensive than meat from animal sacrifice, but its advocates predict that this is the future.
