UK approves first cultivated meat sales in Europe — but only for pet food

Cultivated meat is now approved for sale in Europe — but don’t break out the fine China just yet. The first dishes are exclusively reserved for pets.

Our furry friends can now legally dine on cultivated chicken from Meatly, a startup based in London.

The company announced on Monday that British regulators have rubber-stamped sales of the product.

By providing the green-light, the UK has become the first European country to commercialise lab-grown meat.

“It’s the start of a viable and sustainable alternative to traditional dog food,” Meatly’s CEO and founder, Owen Ensor, told TNW.

That sustainability derives from bringing the farm to the lab.

Meatly’s model

Meat production consumes vast natural resources and leaves a heavy carbon footprint.

Meatly plans to soften these blows to our planet. The startup first extracts cells from a single chicken egg. Just one sample is required for the entire production run.

The extracts are then cultivated in large containers, which control temperature and pH levels. Nutrients are inserted to ensure that the cells grow big and strong.

Finally, they’re formed into pet food that resembles the products found on supermarket shelves.

A similar process has been applied by various European startups, from Germany’s Bluu Seafood to the Netherlands’ Meatable. But their delicacies typically target human appetites.

Meatly has good reasons to focus on our four-legged friends. One is the sustainability impact: pets are estimated to eat 20% of the world’s meat and fish.

Another draw of Meatly’s model is the path to market.

Cultivated meat for humans has struggled to gain approval for consumption and sale in Europe. Food for pets, the thinking goes, will have lower regulatory barriers. But will their owners buy the products?

Commercialising cultivated meat

We asked TNW senior editor Linnea Ahlgren, the owner of a cavapoo puppy, whether she would purchase cultivated pet food.

“In the choice between cultivated meat or meat from a slaughterhouse, then as long as the former has been deemed safe then it’s a no-brainer,” she said.

“Our dog is doing incredibly well on insect-based feed, but for breeds that don’t or for cats that absolutely need the taurine in meat to be healthy it could be a good option.”

At Meatly, that option is now being refined. The startup plans to launch samples of commercially-available pet food this year. Mass production is slated to start within three years.

There are still scale and cost hurdles to overcome, but Ensor has a growing sense of optimism.

“We look forward to seeing innovators in this space grow and help bring cultivated meat to the masses,” he said. “And not just for our four-legged friends!”