Will Lab-Grown Meat Make Its Way To Market By 2018?

The next time that you go to the grocery store to pick up a few items and you reach down to grab some steak or hot dogs, you might be surprised to find out that the item you're holding was grown in a lab rather than being raised on a farm.

There are various companies that are currently engaged in working toward making grown meat a reality in supermarkets around the United States and elsewhere. By using methods of biofabrication, researchers have been able to grow fish, poultry, meat, and other items, in a lab setting.

One of the companies that is working in this space, Modern Meadow, has previously alleged that this process involves at least 96 percent less water and 45 percent less energy, to get the same amount of meat that you could get from traditional farming methods. However, it's still said to be rather pricey for lab-grown meat and some suspect that it might not become affordable for the average consumer until around 2020.

The prices for lab-grown meat have allegedly dropped by at least 96 percent in the last few years.

Though it's still estimated to cost around $11.36 or more per pound of the stuff, compared to around $3 per pound for your average ground beef.

Are consumers ready for grown meat? Other companies that are working in this space at the moment are those like Beyond Meat, Meat Makers, and more. The animal-free meat market is one that's expected to see healthy growth in the next few years to come.

It might not be on the shelves just yet, but there have been taste tests of the product and it's alleged that there isn't much of a difference in taste between lab-grown and farm-raised.

Could grown-meat become the future of agriculture?

Within just a few years time, a great deal of grown meat products might finally make their way to market shelves. It could arrive as early as the end of 2018.

To try and protect their market share, big players in the beef market have recently moved to try and clamp down on the definition of what constitutes meat or beef in the market.

The US Cattlemen's Association has petitioned the USDA and asked them to restrict the definition of both so that it excludes products that were not born, raised, and slaughtered in the traditional manner.

In their petition, they state:

"The "beef" and "meat" labels should inform consumers that the products are from animals harvested in the traditional manner, as opposed to derived from alternative proteins or artificially grown in laboratories. As such, the definitions of "beef" and "meat" should be limited to animals born, raised, and processed in the traditional manner, regardless of the country of origin. Synthetic products and products grown in labs from animal cells should thus not qualify to be labeled as "beef" or as "meat."

The CEO of Beyond Meat, Ethan Brown, has said that he isn't that worried about the petition and if anything he thinks it might help to start the conversation about grown meat with the masses; helping his products and business to gain awareness. This is one discussion that we are likely to hear a lot more about in the coming years.

In the same way that the gmo debate has been such a hot topic of conversation over the last decade, surely the lab-grown products will foster the same criticism.

To try and ease consumer suspicions about the grown-meat products on the shelves, perhaps some entrepreneurs might introduce a voluntary labeling effort that seeks to relay that the item is a traditional meat product similar to how the non-gmo verified project came about.

Pics:
pixabay

Sources:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/09/modern-meadow-lab-grown-leather/540285/
https://futurism.com/are-lab-grown-meats-really-the-future-of-food/
https://gizmodo.com/the-future-will-be-full-of-lab-grown-meat-1720874704
https://newatlas.com/beef-industry-petition-definition-lab-grown-meat/53535/
http://www.wsfa.com/story/37596353/cattlemens-association-wants-definition-for-beef
http://www.ibtimes.com/us-cattlemens-association-petitions-strictly-define-meat-beef-2657531

Related Posts:

Growing Meat: The Future Of Agriculture

https://steemit.com/food/@doitvoluntarily/growing-meat-the-future-of-agriculture

Modern Meadow: The Company That's Growing Meat, Fish, Poultry, and Leather In A Lab

https://steemit.com/science/@doitvoluntarily/modern-meadow-the-company-that-s-growing-meat-fish-poultry-and-leather-in-a-lab