‘Cultivated’ meat is safer, kinder, more sustainable – and coming to a pet shop near you, says Meatly’s CEO, Owen Ensor. How long till it’s ready for human consumption?
I’m looking at the future. I have to squint: it’s a slight opaqueness on the surface of a conical flask of clear liquid, being agitated by a small machine, in a small lab in White City, west London. “That cloudiness in the middle, that’s the cells,” says Owen Ensor. Ensor is the CEO of Meatly and this is his cellular baby: lab-grown chicken. I can see it better in the base of another flask: a centimetre or so of pinkish paste.
If you’ve never really thought about “cultivated meat”, it might be time to start: Meatly has just received UK authorisation to sell lab-grown chicken for pet food. With Pets at Home investing and the first “feeding trial” imminent – 25 dogs are being recruited, though Ensor’s cats Lamu and Zanzi, and Finn, another Meatly team member’s dog, are already enthusiastic consumers: I watch a video of Finn devouring a bowl of it – it’s a matter of when, not if.
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