Lab-Grown Pork Sausages Cultivated From Single Cell Resembles Natural Growth of Muscle, Fat

An innovative food company reveals their new lab-grown pork sausage that sizzles like real meat. Meatable, the Dutch biotechnology company aimed at cultured meat, created their sausages from a single pig cell that replicates the natural growth of muscle and fat.

Daan Luining, the company's founder and CTO, said their meat is 100% delicious and identical to real pork meat but without drawbacks. The lab-grown pork sausages serve as the first step in their journey of creating new natural meat that may become available to consumers in the next few years.

New Way of Creating Lab-Grown Meat

Food companies have been planning to build large facilities for their lab-grown meat production in the US. In the UK, Meatable is introducing a new way of making lab-grown meat that goes away with the conventional technique of creating them.

MailOnline reported that the Dutch company has been developing and refining its process to cultivate meat since its launch in 2018. Unlike the conventional method of making lab-grown meat using fetal bovine serum (FBS), Meatable's lab-grown pork sausages use "opti-ox" technology that only needs a single cell sample from the animal taken without harming them.

FBS is a controversial method because it is harvested from bovine fetuses of pregnant cows during slaughter, usually conducted from a cardiac puncture without any form of anesthesia that causes pain and discomfort to the fetus.

But Meatable's lab-grown pork sausages only take a few weeks to grow using the single cell sample from ground pig shoulder meat. Like real sausages, the lab-grown pork sausages also sizzle in the pan when cooked as a result of moisture within the fats that evaporate due to the hot oil.

Meatable CEO and co-founder Krijin de Nood say this is truly an exciting moment for their company, especially since they have already tasted their product. It took them four years to create a natural meat sausage indistinguishable from the traditional ones.

They hope to sell their product by 2025 as they continue refining it with their food scientists and chefs. Luining also hoped more people could taste it soon, mainly because the Dutch government allowed controlled tastings. The company believes cultivated meat is the future food with the benefits of satisfying appetites but without harming animals and the planet.

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Cultivated Meat is the Future of the Food Industry

Cultured meat, rather than those on a farm, could be a sustainable alternative to the increasing food demands due to the growing population. An article in Merck cited a UN report that calls on substantially cutting down people's meat consumption to help save the planet since breeding, raising, and slaughtering animals for food are also harmful to the environment.

But there is a way to continue eating meat without its harmful effect on the planet. Experts said that cultured meat generated from just a few animal cells at the start of the process avoid the detrimental impacts of intensive farming methods for meat.

Environmental consultant CE Delft stated in its report in 2021 that cultivated meat could reduce the environmental impact of the meat industry by up to 20% as it is produced in a clean, sterile environment and does not involve the large-scale manufacturing process like when farming meat.

For now, selling cultivated meat in Europe has not yet received approval. But food companies producing grown meat believe it is only a matter of time before it becomes common in supermarkets.

 RELATED ARTICLE: US Site's Large-Scale Facility to Produce 15,000 Tons of Lab-Grown Meat Per Year Without Animal Slaughter Will Be Finished Later This Year

Check out more news and information on Lab-Grown Meat in Science Times.