Lab-Grown Chicken Can Now Be Sold in the U.S.
For the first time, U.S. regulators approved the sale of chicken made from animal cells, allowing two California companies to offer “lab-grown” meat to the nation's restaurant tables and eventually, supermarket shelves.
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00:00 [MUSIC]
00:10 So cultivated meat, put really simply,
00:13 is real meat that is grown from animal cells.
00:16 So if you imagine the meat that we have loved and
00:18 eaten for tens of thousands of years, the meat that we
00:21 cultivate is actually biologically the same, but
00:24 it's made in a whole new way.
00:25 [BLANK_AUDIO]
00:35 Ultimately, the cells do what they do.
00:37 They like to double, they like to grow, and
00:39 then ultimately they become meat.
00:41 So after seven to 14 days, or a little longer,
00:44 depending on what we're making, we harvest the cells.
00:47 And then we can make it into any meat product that you love.
00:50 So it could be a chicken filet, it could be a hamburger,
00:53 a hot dog, it could be pretty much anything that you can think of.
00:56 >> Getting USD approval now opens up the pathway for
00:59 us to sell cultivated meat here in the biggest market in the world,
01:04 in a place that's one of the biggest meat producers in the world, and
01:07 I think lends a lot of credibility towards what this is gonna be in the future.
01:10 So it'll be a momentous, historic moment for the food industry.
01:15 [BLANK_AUDIO]
01:25 >> Whether it's an electric car or it's ChagGBT,
01:31 it feels strange and a little peculiar initially.
01:35 But after a period of time, it becomes ubiquitous and boring, and
01:41 that's eventually the path for cultivated meat.
01:43 So the hurdles are the size of the investment, the scaling up, and
01:48 who are you targeting as a customer, and especially who is gonna eat this.
01:53 If you're not forced to eat lab-grown meat,
01:56 why you will be eating lab-grown meat?
01:59 I mean, the real challenge would be, how can you make enough
02:03 chicken meat in a fermenter at the cost of the chicken, which is the lowest one?
02:09 >> For some period of time, I would say it's at least two years,
02:12 probably more than that, it'll be very small volumes.
02:16 So think less than 5,000 pounds sold.
02:19 And ultimately, to get to a point where no matter who you are,
02:23 if you're hearing this, it'll be in your local grocery store, in your local
02:27 restaurant, we'll need to build much larger infrastructure.
02:31 [BLANK_AUDIO]