Who Invented Lab-Grown Meat?

We’ve seen innovations of cellular agriculture innovating in various ways – dairy, eggs, coffee, fish, silk, meat, and many more. But have you ever been curious to know who may have first thought about these things and what may have inspired them? Take cultured meat, for example, the latest wave in the biotechnology industry. No one was talking about it some two decades ago. However, the idea of having real meat that will be grown in labs has always been at the back of someone somewhere, and history has records to prove it.

Who First Talked About Cultured Meat?

The concept of lab-grown meat was brought to the limelight by security expert Jason Gaverick Matheny, who is also well-recognized for his contributions to science and technology asides from having served as a senior civil servant in the Biden administration.

But again, he was not the first one to idealize the innovation. He only made it popular by co-authoring a paper on cultivated meat production and initiated a non-profit organization called New Harvest which was dedicated to cell-based meat research.

Since then, the world, led by series of scientists and biotechnology companies became curious about the idea.

But the first documented mention of anything related to the subject of cultured meat was by Winston Churchill in 1931. The British statesman wrote in an essay which was later included in his work Thoughts and Adventures that:

“…We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.”

Two things stand out from Winston Churchill’s words which have been very applicable in production methods known today: the separate growth of meat and the use of a suitable medium to encourage growth.

Who Idealized the Concept of Cultivated Meat?

Although Churchill recognized that something of this sort could indeed happen, no one was sure of how it could be possible, just not yet, until Dutch researcher Willem Van Eelen in 1950 came up with a workable idea for the production of lab-grown meat based on his independent research.

Van Eelen grew up during the Second World War and was a prisoner of war. Like many others in his situation, he suffered from food scarcity and unavoidably, starvation. This made Van Eelen interested in food security and food production methods.

Willem Van Eelen attended the University of Amsterdam where he first discussed the prospect of meat preservation and culturing. The 20th century was a period of many discoveries in cell biology and general biotechnology. All of these paved the way for research interests in the prospect of culturing meat in labs.

By 1971, we had the first ever in vitro cultivation of muscle fibers performed by Professor of Pathology Russel Ross. Sequel to this, several kinds of research began with scientists securing patent right on possible procedures for the manufacturing of cultured edible meat.

It would even interest you to know that a non-governmental organization, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in 2008 offered a $1 million prize to any company which will the first to make top-grade cultivated chicken meat ready for mass consumption by 2012. The deadline was also at some point extended to 2014. Although the contest never had a winner, it induced public interest in the topic and further plunged scientists into a world of continuous research.

Who Invented the First Cultivated Meat?

In 2013, we had the first real-life edible product made from lab-grown meat – a hamburger patty grown from animal cells. The project was headed by Professor Mark Post alongside other scientists at Maastricht University, Netherlands.

The rest has been a cruise ride (not literally) since then. Either the first production proved that such a concept was actually possible or made biotechnology companies bolder to present their research and innovations on the subject.

A Series of Many Other Firsts

The first commercial sale of cultivated meat happened in December 2020 at a restaurant in Singapore called 1880. The meat sold was manufactured by Eat Just, a US-based company.

Several other companies have reoccurred often in the history of cultured meat production – SuperMeat, Aleph Farms, Mosa Meat, Upside Foods, and Meatable, to mention but a few. And these are only companies that have focused on popular meat products like chicken and beef. Others are even going beyond the conventional to offer cultured meat products like pork, bison, elk, lamb, seafood, and highly prized strains of beef like the Wagyu.

Avant Meat and Finless Foods are known pioneers in the cultured seafood subsector while others like Orbillion Bio and Vow go beyond the usual to culture meat the typical human who not ask for in a grocery store.

Manufacturing procedures for cultured meat have been constantly evolving. But all typically follow the routine of retrieving high growth-rate cells from animals and culturing them in a suitable medium until they grow to the desired size. A couple of other laboratory procedures like scaffolding are applied to help the grown meat achieve a very realistic look, feel, and taste.

The production of lab-grown meat is still very much budding and the product may still be considered fairly expensive for the average man. Coupled with it, a lot of countries are yet to offer regulations on the consumption of the laboratory meat product or give their disposition to it. Nevertheless, cultivated meat is currently being served at special events and at top-rated restaurants in countries where they have been approved for sale although mass production has not started just yet.

But Who Would Have Thought?

Of course, there have been several prophecies and projections – of robots attending to human needs, of living on Mars, and of buying land in a virtual space. But who would have thought that one day, man would truly be able to grow real meat, not some look-alike of meat in a laboratory? Or better still, who would have thought it would be happening this soon?

Well, there we have it, the British statesman Winston Churchill spoke of about a century ago is now real and around with us. Would you be among the first to try it?