The world’s first lab-grown burger is set to be sold in London, a move which could help meat industry solve issues such as high amount of feed, fuel and water required to produce beef.
The burger is being developed by the researcher team led by Professor Mark Post at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. The project is being funded by the Dutch government and an anonymous donation of €300,000. The 5oz prototype burger costs about £250,000 to produce.
In order to produce artificial meat, the stem cells are placed in a broth containing serum from a cow foetus and vital nutrients, through which muscle cells are allowed to grow and multiply up to 30 times.
The burger is made from 3,000 strips of muscle tissue, each about 3cm long, 0.5cm wide, 0.5mm thick, which could be grown over a period of six weeks.
The meat is combined with 200 strips of fat tissue developed in a similar manner and chopped finely, to develop a hamburger. Scientists expect the meat to be sold to public in ten years.
However, before the burger is commercially produced, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) said evidence should be shown proving that the burger is safe for the public consumption and nutritionally equivalent to regular meat.
The mass production of meat in the laboratory would cut down the number of cattle farmed for food, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address the growing global demand for meat as each animal would be able to produce a million times more meat, compared to the traditional process of slaughter.
