A startup has created and served for tasting chicken and duck fillets made from cells grown in a laboratory, without killing or harming a single animal.

'Clean meat', they called it, the developers of the startup Memphis Meats. Lab-grown meat avoids the suffering and slaughter of billions of animals and cuts the soaring ecological costs of livestock farming. Tyson Foods is taking note.

An American startup has created the first lab-grown chicken fillets from real chicken cells, and served them for tasting in San Francisco

According to those invited, the little fillets actually tasted like chicken.

Scientists, startups and animal rights organisations believe that lab-grown meat could help revolutionise the meat industry, which in America alone churns through 200 billion dollars a year (not to mention an exorbitant number of animal lives and environmental resources). Their goal: to permanently replace the tens of billions of animals — cows, calves, pigs and chickens — that are slaughtered, whose meat could be more efficiently — and less cruelly — grown in steel bioreactors.

They call it clean meat

Several startups and university incubators, not only Memphis Meats and Netherlands-based Mosa Meat, are pursuing the idea. They call it clean meat, modelled on the term "clean energy". They argue that the technique could help the food industry avoid the exorbitant costs in grain, water, CO2 emissions, pollution and waste disposal caused by livestock farming worldwide. Several scientists working at these companies have already produced beef, grown from bovine cells and fashioned into a burger and a meatball.

Until now, however, chicken had not yet been produced using this method.

The major meat companies are taking note. Tyson Foods, the largest American meat company by sales, launched a 150 million dollar venture capital fund in December that is said to potentially invest in lab-grown meat. Kevin Myers, head of product development for Hormel Foods, last autumn called the startups' research into lab-grown meat cultivation technology "a promising long-term proposition".

So, on 14 March, Memphis Meats invited testers to a San Francisco restaurant, cooking and serving them their chicken strips, along with a bite of duck "à l'orange", also lab-produced.

Those who tried it — sautéed, breaded and spongier than a normal chicken breast — admitted that it comes very close to the flavour of the real thing. Their verdict: yes, they would eat it again.

"The cellular cultivation of chicken — explains Uma Valeti, physician and co-founder of Memphis Meats — represents a technological leap forward and opens up an important market. Chicken is the most popular animal protein in the US."

An American eats 42 kg of chicken per year, according to 2016 data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Roughly the same amount as beef and pork combined.

Around the world, approximately 61 billion chickens are raised and slaughtered for meat every year. The FAO predicts that chickens — relatively cheap to produce and with few religious or cultural barriers — will overtake pigs as the most consumed meat in the world by 2020.

Duck is relevant for a different reason. China tops the list of global consumption, with 2.7 million tonnes of duck meat every year, almost 10 times that of the second largest consuming country, France, according to data from the International Poultry Council.

A kilogram of lab-grown chicken costs 18,000 dollars, half what it did a year ago

The startups working in this field are still a very long way from being able to offer quantities and lab-grown meat products capable of replacing the current system of farms, slaughterhouses, feed mills and processing plants. But progress is being made.

Memphis Meats estimates that with its current technology it can produce a kilogram of chicken meat for 18,000 dollars. That is half what it cost the company to produce its first beef meatball a year ago, in February 2016.

The startups, however, aspire to produce meat that can be economically competitive with that of conventionally farmed animals. Today, boneless chicken breast costs an average of 8 dollars per kilogram in grocery stores in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Animal rights organisations, ethics scholars and philosophers have been debating this alternative for years. Peter Singer himself came out in favour of it years ago. Leo Hickman has covered it with great interest, in terms of ecological savings. Peta has even funded research into it. For those who wonder whether it is in line with ethical, natural or vegetarian choices: 1) is the way meat is "produced" today perhaps natural? 2) it will be "clean meat", that is, free of antibiotics, hormones and pesticides. 3) it will be cruelty-free 4) it will cost less 5) the environmental impact of intensive farming will finally be eliminated.