“World’s First” Pet Food With Cultivated Chicken Set to Launch
With the pet food industry responsible for around 20 percent of meat globally, cultivating meat in a lab rather than farming animals could help transform the market in a healthy and sustainable way.
Credit: Omni/Meatly
A company has revealed what it is calling the world’s first cans of pet food that use cultivated chicken.
Cultivated meat company Meatly has teamed up with plant-based pet food company Omni to create the product, with the pair aiming to become the first in the world to sell cultivated meat for pets.
And now the first ever cans of cultivated pet food have now successfully been made on the production line, a move which Meatly calls a “major milestone for cultivated meat globally” and shows that the companies are ready to sell the product.
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. The innovative process is projected to become a key solution in creating a more sustainable and kind global food system by producing meat that sidesteps the environmental and ethical issues typically associated with industrial animal agriculture.
Credit: Omni/Meatly
But before the new cruelty-free cat food can be sold in shops, cultivated meat must first gain regulatory approval in the UK and Europe. However, there is hope that approval could come soon, with 2024 projected by some in the industry to be a landmark year for regulatory approvals. Singapore, Israel, and the US have already granted approval to cultivated meat products, and other countries including the UK are understood to be readying approvals by the end of the year.
Pet Food - A Huge Carbon Footprint
The pet food industry is often overlooked as a major consumer of meat and its associated environmental footprint. Meatly points out that pet food accounts for 20 percent of meat produced globally, which represents a significant amount of GHG emissions.
And the market for pet food is continually growing, too, with around 7 percent growth each year with estimates predicting that the industry is set to be worth a whopping $150 billion by 2026.
But cultivated meat could help meet this demand with a sustainable, tasty and nutritious meat whilst reducing a reliance on industrial agriculture.
Cultivated meat can also be optimized for health, too, says Dr. Guy Sandelowsky, a veterinarian who went on to found Omni. Not only can cultivated meat incorporate essential vitamins, minerals and omegas, but it can also eliminate more worrisome components that can be found in traditional meat, such as antibiotic residue.
And Pets at Home, the UK’s largest retailer of pet supplies, plans to be the first retailer to offer the product. “While it is still early days, we are committed to helping drive change in the industry and finding sustainable alternatives to replace some of the protein used globally in pet food would be a major step forward”, said David Wainwright, Commercial Director at retailer Pets at Home.
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