Lab Grown Chicken is Now For Sale
Author: Amanda Ilkov | Published: December 7, 2020 | Updated: December 11, 2020Cultured meat holds the promise of future where meat is cheaper, cruelty free and less damaging to the environment. It sounds great, but the shift to cultured meat may be hard for consumers to swallow. Would you eat meat grown not on a farm, but in a lab?

Would you eat lab grown chicken? Meat from a bioreactor? It sounds technology straight out of a sci-fi movie, but you may soon have the option to buy meat grown in a lab. People in Singapore already do. And in Israel, you can already book a table at “The Chicken” test restaurant and try a cultured chicken burger for yourself.
How does it taste? Well, like chicken.
Singapore Becomes Worlds First
When hungry diners head out to eat in Singapore, they’ll soon have a new option. Lab grown meat is now on the menu.
Last week, Singapore’s government became the first in the world to approve lab grown chicken for sale to the public. The Singapore Food Agency will allow the sale of chicken bites made with cultured meat, produced by an American startup called Eat Just.
Josh Tetrick, CEO of Eat Just says, “I’m sure that our regulatory approval for cultured meat will be the first of many in Singapore and in countries around the globe”. [3]
Singapore hopes that by supporting high-tech food production, it will increase the percentage of food it produces for it’s 5.7 million residents. Currently only 10% of the food consumed in the city state is produced there. [1]
So called “cultured meat”, is becoming a reality in other parts of the world too. In Israel, the new protein source is being tested publicly, although it is not yet approved for sale. [7]
- Wikipedia's Definition of Cultured Meat
Cultured meat is meat produced by in vitro cell culture of animal cells, instead of from slaughtered animals. It is a form of cellular agriculture.
Cultured meat is produced using many of the same tissue engineering techniques traditionally used in regenerative medicine. The concept of cultured meat was popularized by Jason Matheny in the early 2000s after co-authoring a seminal paper on cultured meat production and creating New Harvest [8], the world's first nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting in vitro meat research.
- Wikipedia's Definition of Cellular Agriculture
Cellular agriculture focuses on the production of agriculture products from cell cultures using a combination of biotechnology, tissue engineering, molecular biology, and synthetic biology to create and design new methods of producing proteins, fats, and tissues that would otherwise come from traditional agriculture.
Most of the industry is focused on animal products such as meat, milk, and eggs, produced in cell culture rather than raising and slaughtering farmed livestock. The most well known cellular agriculture concept is cultured meat.
What is Lab Grown Chicken?
Lab grown chicken is type of poultry grown as a cultured meat product rather than on a live animal.
The meat is grown in vitro from healthy cells taken from a live donor animal, or sometimes even from an egg. The cells are then fed a serum and placed in bio reactors to grow for several days or weeks. The process is similar to the one used to grow tissue for medical use.
Proponents say growing meat this way eliminates the need to raise and slaughter actual animals, and could provide a stable, predictable supply of meat free of antibiotics.
This process is part of the new and growing field of Cellular Agriculture. Proponents say it could eventually eliminate the need for farming animals to produce common foods and animal products like milk, eggs, leather and meat.
How Does Lab Grown Chicken Taste?
Oliver Holmes was the first journalist to get a taste of SuperMeats cultured chicken burger. [7]
In a stylish restaurant in Tel Aviv, Mr. Holmes sat just feet away from the huge metal vats where the chicken in his dinner was grown. The dining room is divided from the lab only by a wall of glass. Ido Savir, CEO of SuperMeats, jokes “That’s true local production of meat”. [7]
The restaurant, called “The Chicken”, is owned by SuperMeats. It serves as a sort of testing and research facility for the companies cultured chicken products.
Tastes Like Chicken
Oliver Holmes of The Guardian recently tried SuperMeats chicken burger at "The Chicken" in Tel Aviv. The cultured meat was grown in the metal vats at the back of the restaurant.
Read the Full StoryThe lab grown chicken burger is served as a breaded, deep fried patty on a brioche bun. It’s topped with wasabi and chilli mayo and comes with a side of sweet potato fries. At first glance, it looks just like any other chicken burger. It tastes familiar too. Holmes describes the chicken patty: “Similar to many chicken burgers, it breaks and flakes when pulled apart and is extremely tender”. [7]
Some Big Hurdles Ahead
The cultured meat industry faces a number of challenges, not the least of which is price.
Regulation poses another hurdle for the fledgling lab-meat industry. Singapore is currently the only country in the world where cultured meat products have been approved for sale to the public. In Israel, SuperMeat’s restaurant allows patrons to taste test their chicken burger, but they’re still not allowed to sell it.
Further Reading
Interested in cultured meat and lab grown chicken? Here are a few links worth checking out.
NewHarvest.org
New Harvest is the non-profit research institute building the field of cellular agriculture. It was established in 2004, and is a registered public charity in the United States.
Read MoreEat Just Website
Just Eat is known for its plant based eggs. It now produces cultured chicken products, and was recently approved to sell it's cultured chicken bites in Singapore.
Read MoreSuperMeat Website
SuperMeat produces cultured chicken products directly from chicken cells. They're based in Israel, and recently launched a test restaurant in Tel Aviv called "The Chicken".
Visit SuperMeatMemphis Meats Website
Memphis Meat was founded in 2015 by cell biologist Nicholas Genovese, Ph.D. and cardiologist Uma Valeti, M.D. in Berkley, California. The US based company hopes to feed 10 billion people by 2050.
Reference Source Citations
The following links are to provide reference information for the sources cited in the post content above.
1. Lab-grown meat approved for sale for 1st time
Cited: 12/07/2020Thomson Reuters, CBC
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Published: 12/02/2020
2. No-kill, lab-grown meat to go on sale for first time
Cited: 12/07/2020Damian Carrington, The Guardian
London, UK, Published: 12/02/2020
3. Lab-grown meat to go on sale in Singapore in world first
Cited: 12/07/2020AFP Staff, CTV News
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Published: 12/02/2020
4. Singapore becomes first country to approve lab-grown meat
Cited: 12/07/2020Amy Woodyatt and Danielle Wiener-Bronner, CNN
Atlanta, Georgia, USA, Published: 12/02/2020
5. Cultured Meat
Cited: 12/07/2020Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation
San Fransisco, California, United States
6. Eat Just Granted World’s First Regulatory Approval for Cultured Meat
Cited: 12/07/2020Andrew Noyes, Business Wire
San Fransisco, California, United States, Published: 12/01/2020
7. I tried the world's first no-kill, lab-grown chicken burger
Cited: 12/10/2020Oliver Holmes, The Guardian
London, UK, Published: 12/04/2020