A government agency has authorized three companies to sell so-called cultured, artificial or in vitro chicken meat.
From the lab to the plate. The United States authorized Wednesday, June 21 for the first time the sale of chicken meat grown in the laboratory. Three companies are involved: Upside Foods, and the duo Good Meat and Joinn Biologics. The Federal Food Inspection Service (FSIS) has thus “issued three notices of compliance to establishments manufacturing (….) products derived from animal cells”says a press release.
Upside Foods and Good Meat had already obtained the green light from the agency responsible for food safety in the United States (FDA) in November, while the Ministry of Agriculture checked and approved the regularity of the labeling of the products concerned. Franceinfo returns in five questions on this subject.
1How are these products made?
The production of this synthetic meat begins with the removal of cells from an animal, which can be a chicken, but also a cow or a pig. “ These are not yet muscle cells, but stem cells which are capable of multiplying and, under the influence of certain hormonal factors, of differentiating into muscle cells.”wrote Eric Muraille, biologist and immunologist at the Free University of Brussels (Belgium), in 2019 in The Conversation.
These cells are placed in large tanks, called bioreactors, then fed with nutrients similar to those ingested by living animals: proteins, fats, sugar, minerals and vitamins. Thanks to these nutrients, the cells grow as they would in the body of the animal and are transformed into muscle tissue and fat. The product obtained is then removed and molded into predefined shapes, such as that of a chicken fillet, or a minced steak such as the one produced in 2013 by Mark Post, from the University of Maastricht (Netherlands). Five to seven weeks are necessary for the production of this meat, specifies the site agriculturecellular.fr, against 7 to 12 weeks for a conventional chicken or 112 weeks for a conventional beef.
2Why is this meat grown?
First argument of the defenders of this meat: respect for animal welfare. “ This method of production eliminates the need to raise and kill animals for food.”declares in The echoes, Tom Bry-Chevalier, author of a thesis on the economic and environmental issues of cultured meat. It could also limit the risk of infectious diseases transmitted from animals to humans, according to the Dutch company Mosa Meat, founded by Mark Post, or even “liberate arable land”adds Jean-François Hoquette, director of research at the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (Inrae), in an interview published on the Inrae website.
Uma Valeti, CEO and founder of Upside Foods, sees it as “a giant step towards a more sustainable future”. Indeed, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, conventional meat production represents 18% of greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming, 30% of land use and 8 % of water (8%) and global energy consumption.
3Is this meat really better for the planet?
Doubts persist about the benefits of this alternative, particularly regarding its energy consumption. Different studies conducted on the subject do not necessarily arrive at the same results. According to studies conducted in 2011 and 2015, “in vitro meat production consumes more energy than the production of poultry or pigs, mainly for the production of culture media and for heating the incubators”, summarizes Jean-François Hoquette on the Inrae website. On the other hand, again according to these two studies, “the production in vitro has a lower overall warming power than beef production”adds the expert.
More recently, a study conducted by the University of California at Davis, published in April in the scientific journal BioRxiv, showed that all phases of laboratory meat production required a lot of energy and emitted a large amount of greenhouse gases. However, this work has not yet been evaluated by other scientists (peer review).
4How is it different from natural meat?
Convinced by this looming revolution in our plates, some American restaurants have already positioned themselves. As soon as the green light for this marketing was given by the FSIS, the starred French chef Dominique Crenn placed an order with Upside Foods for her restaurant in San Francisco. But Jean-François Hoquette is cautious: “We are still far from a real muscle, which mixes organized fibers, blood vessels, nerves, connective tissue and fat cells.
According to the research director at Inrae, it is this complexity “which gives meat its nutritional properties, in particular the presence of heme iron [qui est associé à des protéines comme l’hémoglobine] easily assimilated, vitamin B12, various fatty acids, and more generally all the micronutrients naturally present in meat”.
It is also not clear that this cultured meat has the same flavor as traditional meat. “For the moment, in vitro meat does not reproduce these nutritional and sensory qualities: it is low in myoglobin, therefore in iron, and must be seasoned with many ingredients to get closer to the taste of meat”adds the expert.
5Is it already authorized elsewhere?
The United States is the second country to authorize the marketing of cultured meat. Singapore was the first country to do so, in December 2020. On the other hand, its arrival in Europe is not for now and is mainly subject to the regulations Novel Foodwhich states that “any food not significantly consumed before May 1997 is considered a novel food”recalls the National Food Safety Agency. “The regulatory framework of the European Union is more restrictive than that of the FDA (…). The placing on the market of novel foods depends on an examination validated by the health authorities of each Member State, we’re still a long way off,” enlightens Jean-François Hoquette in West France.