Biosynthetic meat to become food staple if 'climate conscious' consumers' demands outweigh demand for real meat

Fold Unfolded

2024 Student Journalism Conference

Applications are now open for The Democracy Fund's third annual Student Journalism Conference. This is a one-of-a-kind, all-expenses-paid opportunity for young aspiring journalists in Canada!

TDF Student Journalism Conference 2024

E-transfer (Canada):
[email protected] - password RebelNews if required

Cheques made out to Rebel News:
Rebel News Network Ltd.
PO Box 61056 Eglinton/Dufferin RO
Toronto, ON M6E 5B2

Crypto

Lab-grown biosynthetic meat is going to become a food staple — should the demands of “climate conscious” consumers outweigh the demands for real meat.

Food tech startups are encouraging consumers who care about climate change to make the switch from soy-based meat to lab-grown biosynthetic meat in the latest bid to “preserve the planet,” The Independent reported Thursday.

Primeval Foods is pitching lab-grown, bacteria-cultivated lion, tiger, and zebra meat with the intent of making them widely available to consumers. Once the products receive their regulatory approvals, the company said Michelin-starred restaurants in London will be the first to offer the biosynthetic meats in dishes, followed by large-scale plans to offer the products in supermarkets.

“People are constantly seeking to discover new foods, new restaurants, new culinary experiences, but the traditional species have reached their limitation on meeting this demand,” said Yilmaz Bora, a managing partner of the venture capital firm behind Primeval Foods.

“It has to go beyond the current beef, chicken, and pork dishes, and it has to come without the expense of nature,” he said. “In the coming months, we are planning to have a tasting event in London with one of our cultivated exotic meats, to give the world a taste of what the next chapter of food would look like.”

As the publication explains, the cultivated meat is a “production method that allows companies to produce food from any species without slaughtering animals. It is produced by cultivating animal cells directly, which allows producers to replicate the sensory and nutritional profiles of conventional meat.”

Since cultivated meat is not yet produced on an industrial scale, there is still relative uncertainty around its benefits in preserving the planet.

But scientists extensively conclude that the overall environmental impacts of cultured meat production are substantially lower than those of conventionally produced meat.

According to a study on its environmental impacts, production of cultivated meat involves approximately 7–45 per cent less energy use than conventionally produced European meat.

Greenhouse gas emissions were also found to be 78–96 per cent lower, while land use was cut by 99 per cent and water use by 82–96 per cent.

Just don’t look too closely at how the sausages are made.

The move toward biosynthetic meats come amid a slump in the sales of soy-based meat, with Beyond Meat seeing a 11% drop in stock in February, reporting losses of up to $80.4m, three times more than the year before.

Overall sales of plant-based meat dropped by 0.5% in 2021 after seeing an initial increase of 46 percent in 2020.