“Breakthrough” for cultured meat production as researchers develop technology to grow bite-sized chicken chunks
A new study has revealed a landmark process that can now create bigger pieces of whole meat - without needing to farm an animal.
Chicken produced with the new production method. Credit: Shoji Takeuchi, The University of Tokyo
Researchers have revealed a new food manufacturing process that can cultivate bite-sized chunks of chicken in a laboratory, in a move that could speed up the development of cultivated meat.
Also known as cellular agriculture or lab-grown meat, cultivated meat production creates ‘real’ meat, but it is cultivated - grown - directly from animal cells, rather than a farmed animal.
While still an emerging industry, there is much excitement in the food sector and with investors who see cultivated meat as having the potential to create a more sustainable food system that can produce meat without having the environmental and ethical issues typically associated with farming and slaughtering millions of animals.
So far, cultivated meat production has faced difficulty directly producing larger whole cuts of meat. This has resulted in some initial cultivated meat companies combining both cultivated meat cells or cultivated animal fat along with existing foods like plant-based proteins to help create bigger sized cuts.
Now, a team of researchers have developed what they describe as a “breakthrough” for the industry with a manufacturing process that can cultivate bite-sized chunks of chicken.
Cultivated chicken production doesn’t require the mass farming and slaughtering of animals.
As part of the process, the team used a bioreactor with a scalable array of hollow fibres, which mimic blood vessels by delivering nutrients to the tissues.
These tiny fibers are not new - they are already commonly used in things like household water filters - but in cultivated meat production they have now been found to help create artificial tissues.
Taken together, the researchers were able to pioneer a bioreactor that effectively mimics a circulatory system that can deliver nutrients and oxygen to article tissue.
The results, which were published this month in the journal Trends in Biotechnology, saw the bioreactor produce over 10 grams of chicken muscle for cultured meat.
“Cultured meat offers a sustainable, ethical alternative to conventional meat,” says the study’s author Shoji Takeuchi of The University of Tokyo. “However, replicating the texture and taste of whole-cut meat remains difficult. Our technology enables the production of structured meat with improved texture and flavor, potentially accelerating its commercial viability.”
While the latest breakthrough from Takeuchi shows how cultivated meat production may evolve in the future, several companies are already bringing their own take on cultivated meat to the current market.
San Francisco-based company Mission Barns recently made the historic announcement that its cultivated pork products have been approved by the FDA and will soon be for sale in the US. Mission Barns’ cultivated products, which include meatballs and bacon, are made from a “fat-first approach” which combines cultivated pork fat with plant-based proteins.
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