It sounded like something from a sci-fi movie, and was promptly labelled the frankenburger; the lab grown beef burger was met with a cocktail of intrigue and disgust. It came with a hefty price tag, too – £215,000, which fell considerably to less than £10 two years later. Now, despite being a little dry and crunchy, scientists think the food of science fiction could be hitting our shelves within the next two decades.
Meanwhile, finely textured beef (aka “pink slime”) technology captures pieces of lean meat too small to be efficiently removed with a knife, (meat that would otherwise be left on the bone and go to waste). Following negative press, fast food chains like McDonalds, Burger King and Taco Bell discontinued using finely textured beef in their products, despite the cost and environmental benefits from raising around 1.5m fewer cattle.
Then there’s the 3D printed steak. Imagine if bioprinters were just as commonplace as your Nespresso machine, “printing” liquid versions of food dot by dot to create everything from chocolate and scallops to indeed, beef. In the process, it could save a mountain of energy, water and emissions. NASA in particular is interested in such innovations to feed their crew on long space missions.
The trends behind the science
Behind inventions like these, what are the consumer trends driving them?
Globally, meat consumption is on the rise due to economic advances in the developing world, a new report from wealth management firm, Julius Baer, aptly named Feeding The World: Meating Demand, finds. Beef will continue to lose market share to cheaper alternatives such as poultry and pork, with poultry overtaking pork as the most popular meat by 2020.
In environmental terms, this is good news – to produce one kg of beef about 15,000 litres of water is requried, around triple what pork and chicken require, using 6,000 and 4,000 litres respectively. On an interesting side note, the report points out that chocolate requires a whopping 17,000 litres of water, 12% more than beef.
Compared to paler meat, there have been few gains in efficiency within beef production - that is, in terms of converting feed into meat - so disruptive innovations like laboratory grown meat could be welcome. That said, the report expects genetic and vaccine advances to gradually improve this efficiency and reduce how much methane - a potent greenhouse gas - cattle produce.
“Lab meat is likely, although the progress and timing of the transition from laboratory into commercialisation is difficult to estimate,” says Warren Kreyzig, commodity analyst at Julius Baer. He says there’s still a big question mark over cell culture techniques, cost and environmental footprint.
The public have mixed views on the matter. In a poll by the Guardian, which asked readers if they would eat in vitro meat to save the environment, 46% said yes, and 54% said no. Equally, vegan advocacy organisations also differ in opinion. The Vegan Society says we should focus on the immediate solution of plant-based diets, while PETA are supportive of the premise, thanks to it being kinder to animals, and potentially reducing greenhouse gases, deforestation and world hunger.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who footed the bill for the first test-tube burger, said at the time: “There are basically three things that can happen going forward. One is that we all become vegetarian. I don’t think that’s really likely. The second is we ignore the issues and that leads to continued environmental harm, and the third option is we do something new.”
While it may appear to be a real option, livestock farmers could be concerned for their livelihoods, and the increasing move towards naturally or organically produced food may be at odds with food made in a lab. In the same way that pink slime was objected to, the laboratory burger could face strong criticism. It will mean a higher cost for low value cuts and products, says Kreyzig, and even higher demand for poultry and pork. Either way, that means increased meat prices for everyone.
Test-tube happy meals
What does a fast food chain – for whom burgers are a way of life – think about the prospect? “Our burgers are 100% beef made from whole cuts of forequarter and flank sourced from 16,000 farmers in the UK and Ireland,” says a McDonald’s spokesperson. “We have no plans to change this.”
If you’re imagining everyone with a lab-grown beef burger in hand, “Rather than having a disruptive impact it’s most likely to remain a niche product,” continues Kreyzig.
At the end of the day, feeding the world is a challenge that persists, and we need sustainable solutions – whether they’re grown in a test tube or otherwise.
Often, progressive innovations gain little outside attention, says Kreyzig. “Although that doesn’t rule out the potential for disruptive technologies like lab meat to shake-up industry supply chains. Even if we don’t know what they are, further innovations are inevitable – they are the known unknowns.”
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