Nearly 100 firms are vying to be the first to bring cultured meat to market. Select locations—including a private club in Singapore and a test kitchen in Tel Aviv—serve it from time to time.
But several challenges remain before these products come to a supermarket near you. First is regulation.
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Another challenge is the range of cuts. In principle cultured meat can be grown as tissues, not just cells. In practice compressible nubs similar to ground animal meat are much easier and what most of the companies do best. Eat Just serves chicken nuggets in Singapore, and SuperMeat offers “crispy cultured chicken fillet” in Tel Aviv (it’s a burger, but made from fried chicken). Whole chicken breasts—to say nothing of a rack of ribs, or any other meat on the bone—remain far off.
This drawback has not stopped investors from piling in to the sector. If they are doing so on the basis that biotechnologists are both cunning and armed with ever more subtle tools, fair enough. But no cultured-meat company is as yet either producing at scale or making money.
