UK first in Europe to approve lab-grown meat for pet food

( NewsNation ) — Pets across the pond will soon dig into lab-grown food, as the United Kingdom becomes the first country in Europe to approve the sale of cultivated meat for animal consumption.

The watershed approval is for Meatly , a British company aiming to “create healthy, delicious food for our pets without costing the planet.”

According to the company, its product is made by feeding chicken egg cells with vitamins, minerals and amino acids inside a container that “controls things like temperature and acidity, just the same as making yogurt or beer.”

Meatly plans to launch the first feeding trials of its cultivated chicken in August.

“I’m incredibly proud that Meatly is the first company in Europe to get the green light to sell cultivated meat,” CEO Owen Ensor said in a press release. “We are proving that there is a safe and low-capital way to rapidly bring cultivated meat to market.”

It’s a step in a greener direction for an industry whose yearly greenhouse gas emissions are equivalent to that of smaller countries like the Philippines and Mozambique, according to research published in ScienceDirect.

“Our pets consume huge amounts of meat every day and so this development can play a crucial part in reducing the emissions, resource consumption, and animal suffering caused by traditional meat production,” said Jim Mellon, founder of agronomics for Meatly, in a press release.

The U.S. approved the sale of lab-grown meat in June 2023, with some states banning or restricting it when possible.

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