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Would you pay $5 for a lab-grown hamburger? You might get the chance if a plan to have cultured meat on Australian shelves as soon as next year becomes a reality.
Key points:
- Food Standards Australia is expected to make a decision by March next year
- Australian companies say the US decision will pave the way for Australia
- Cultured meat patties will initially sell for $5 to $6
The national food standards body is assessing an application from a luxury cultivated meat company, while others are watching to see how things shake out.
This follows the US agriculture department's approval of California-based firms Upside Foods and Good Meat to sell chicken meat labelled as "lab-grown" or "cell-cultivated".
The US is the second country in the world to approve the sale of lab-grown chicken, following Singapore.
Australia's first application to sell cultured meat is from cell-based meat company Vow.
The regulator expects to consult on that application in August and decide by March, Glen Neal, general manager of Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) risk management and intelligence, told the ABC.
Cell-grown meat is not the same as plant-based meat, which is produced from plant sources such as soy, pea, fungi, wheat and rice.
Cultured meat begins with cells from a living animal, a fertilised egg or a bank of stored cells. The cells are then grown in steel tanks – known as cultivators or bioreactors — and fed nutrients similar to what animals would eat.
Paul Bevan, chief executive of cultivated meat company Magic Valley said the US decision would light the way for Australia's cell-based meat industry.
"It makes things a lot more tangible for people, particularly in traditional agriculture," he said.
“There’s been a lot of talk around cultivated or lab-grown meat for a number of years now, but this will see products finally come to market for the consumer.
"I just think it's a massive milestone for the industry."
Vow founder and CEO George Peppou said the FSANZ approvals process had been painstaking.
"They require an enormous amount of data, they ask questions about everything, there is an enormously complex food safety plan that we put together that they go through in really rigorous detail," he said.
Vow products include cultured quail and foie gras — a product traditionally made of duck or goose liver.
Vow aims to create foods and nutritional profiles that do not directly replicate what animals produce, Mr Peppou said – meaning it won't be in direct competition with the Aussie barbecue.
"I'm a Greek boy, so my family's love language is various forms of lamb," Mr Peppou said.
“I and my family would be very happy to incorporate [cultured meat] into our diets as an additional, new choice that offers things that traditional meat can’t.”
Burgers followed by steaks
Magic Valley plans to submit an application to the food safety body this year and will aim to commercialise products by late 2024 if they receive approval.
Mr Bevan said the company had two minced meat products, but work will continue on the nutritional profile of the cell-based pork and lamb before they go before the regulator for assessment.
He expects the cultured burgers will initially sell for $5 to $6 a piece, but scaled-up production could see that retail price drop to $1.
'Structured' meat products, such as steak, will follow down the line, Mr Bevan said.
Names and sustainability
Nutrition is a key area of interest for the food regulator, Mr Neal said.
"We have regard not only to safety – is the product going to cause acute illness – but certainly long-term chronic conditions as well, and that includes considering the nutritional context of any such foods," he said.
Future naming and labelling considerations will be firmly focused on consumer safety, Mr Neal said, rather than whether a cell-grown product can be called 'steak'.
Whatever the name, cell-based meat advocates say the products are an ethical and sustainable alternative to modern industrial farming.
The livestock and poultry industries are responsible for more than 10 per cent of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.
But the technology is not without its detractors.
Italy's government has banned the production and sale of cultivated meat for human or animal consumption. At the same time, preliminary research from the US said the process was more energy intensive than industrial agriculture.
According to research led by Monash University's Paul Wood, cellular agriculture challenges include product price and distribution logistics.
Prof Wood's study found that predictions on when cell-based meat would become commercially available have so far been inaccurate, as technical constraints have remained.
Feeding the world
But the CSIRO says the global population is expected to peak at nine billion by 2050, and current agricultural models will only produce enough food for eight billion people.
In particular, the CSIRO said the meat industry would be unable to meet demand and would need to increase production by up to 73 per cent.
The CSIRO said there was a $13 billion market opportunity for Australia to diversify its protein sources, which will include cultivated meats, plant-based products, and insect proteins for both people and animals.
While there has been some pushback from the livestock industry as lab-grown meat becomes a reality, Mr Peppou said his company was focused on producing premium products for higher-cost restaurants and the export market.
"We're not expecting to replace the pub steak."
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