Cultured meat, also known as lab-grown or cell-based meat, is produced by cultivating animal cells in vitro rather than by slaughtering animals. It involves taking a small sample of cells from an animal and growing them in a nutrient-rich medium inside a bioreactor. The result is meat that is biologically identical to conventional meat but produced with significantly reduced environmental impact and animal suffering.
The concept of cultured meat was popularized in the early 2000s, with NASA funding research into long-term food systems for space travel. The first public demonstration of a lab-grown burger was presented by Dr. Mark Post in 2013 in London, costing over $300,000 to produce. Since then, the cost has dropped dramatically as the technology has scaled.
Dozens of startups and established food companies are now developing cultured meat products, ranging from beef and chicken to seafood. In 2020, Singapore became the first country to approve the sale of cultured meat. The technology promises to address global food security challenges, reduce greenhouse gas emissions from livestock, and minimize antibiotic use in agriculture.