A Silicon Valley, Memphis Meats, is very close to bringing their first lab-grown meat product to grocery store shelves and it is looking like it will be none other than the humble chicken tender. You won’t be able to head out to Stop n Shop, Wegman’s or Publix to grab them just yet however. Uma Valeti, the company’s co-founder says that he’s expecting to see it hit shelves by 2021/2022.
While the chicken tender is going to be their first mass-market product, it isn’t their first successful attempt at creating meat from animal cells in the lab. Last year, they made headlines with a lab-grown meatball.
“Essentially, we are taking a number of animal cells, giving them clean and nutritious food and then we watch them grow into a muscle. We harvest that muscle and then cook it,” Valeti says.
Depending on the texture of the product you want, growing the meat can take an average of 4-6 weeks. At their current stage, it only costs around $6,000 per pound of meat to create a finished product. However, if you think that is a lot, consider that they were at a cost of $18,000 just a year ago. Now they just need to get it down to around $4 a pound so people who don’t just shop at Whole Foods can afford it.
I wonder if people who don’t eat meat because of cruelty to animals would eat this?