US Approves Lab-Grown Chicken To Be Sold For The First Time In A Restaurant

One day you’re eating free-range chicken, and the next, it’s a cut of breast meat grown in a lab by some scientists. Yes, lab-grown food is not an entirely radical innovation, but there have been some bumps to get it to mass consumption. Now, the US has successfully navigated all regulatory requirements to bring chicken made by the Singaporean-based Good Meat’s lab to a restaurant in Washington DC.
 
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has given the all-clear to distribute the meat across the country. As per the Federal Meat Inspection Act, this clearance subjects Good Meat to regulation by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Services. While inspectors are typically placed in slaughterhouses, Good Meat’s unique cultivation process requires inspectors stationed in the company’s labs.
 
Good Meat creates its chicken by extracting and multiplying cells from eggs or live animals (through a thankfully painless process) to generate more meat without cell replenishment. They are then nurtured in bioreactors where temperature and nutrient conditions facilitate their growth. It takes just four to six weeks for the meat to harvest.
 
So which restaurant will have the pleasure of plating up some artificial chicken? That much remains a mystery. It is known that the initial batch is being sold to chef and humanitarian José Andrés, who is looking to add the meat to the menu of one of his restaurants. However, he owns nine different establishments in Washington, DC, from fine dining to food trucks.
 
Over in Singapore, lab-grown chicken is gaining some traction and can be found in numerous eateries nationwide.
 
 
 
[via New Atlas and Reuters, cover image via Good Meat]