[ad_1]
In a major first for the food industry, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has declared that a lab-grown chicken product developed by California food-tech startup Upside Foods is safe for human consumption, setting the stage for a new food revolution in which the world’s meat is grown in bioreactors instead of on factory farms.
The Nov. 16 ruling, which comes after a rigorous evaluation period, is the first and biggest of three hurdles that must be cleared before the Berkeley-based company can sell its “cultivated”—the industry’s preferred term—chicken in grocery stores and restaurants, but it likely paves the way for scores of similarly-made products, ranging from lab-grown beef to steaks, fois gras, and even cultivated mouse treats for cats.
“This is a watershed moment in the history of food,” said Dr. Uma Valeti, CEO and Founder of UPSIDE Foods, in a statement “We started UPSIDE amid a world full of skeptics, and today, we’ve made history again as the first company to receive a ‘No Questions’ letter from the FDA for cultivated meat. This milestone marks a major step towards a new era in meat production.”
More than 100 companies are working on various iterations of cultivated meat, but they all start from the same basic principle: stem cells are taken from the source animal (either via a biopsy from an adult animal, or from an in-vitro embryo) and are encouraged to multiply in a bioreactor filled with a nutrient-rich broth. Once they differentiate into fat, muscle, or structural cells they are moved to a larger bioreactor where they continue to grow until they can be harvested. The process can take anywhere from two to four weeks, depending on the final product. Ground chicken, for example, takes less khbrknews than a complex steak, created with the help of a 3-D bioprinter. Upside’s chicken filets fall somewhere in between. The industry is…
[ad_2]
