Green Plate Special: The hype is growing around lab-grown meat
Singapore is using it as part of an effort to source more of its food on the island.
By Christine Burns Rudalevige
Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer
Test tube meat is everywhere. Well, maybe not everywhere in the actual flesh just yet, but certainly, it’s everywhere in the news.
In December, San-Francisco based start-up Eat Just made headlines from Beijing to Berlin when it won regulatory approval from the Singapore government to sell lab-grown chicken there. The approval comes as part of the Southeast Asian city-state’s efforts to have at least 30 percent of its food produced on the island by 2030. Lab-grown meat and vertical farming are two ways they plan to get there.
The Spanish government is funding a new project in the emerging area of cell-based protein.
Biotech Foods, a firm based in San Sebastián in the north west of the country, is leading the scheme, which has attracted EUR3.7m (US$4.5m) of government funding.
The company, is developing alternatives to beef and pork, is the only cell-based firm involved in the project, in which Spanish meat processors Argal and Martínez Somalo are also taking part.
Iñigo Charola, Biotech Foods CEO, said the company had started pilot production but, asked when the company was hoping to launch its first product, he said: We are working to bring our products to the market in the near term. Based on the successful launch of cultivated meat in Singapore we think cultivated meat will be part of our diets in many other countries sooner than expected.
El Gobierno impulsa un proyecto español de carne cultivada | Compañías elpais.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from elpais.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.