---
title: "Are Lab-Grown Meats Really the Future of Food?"
description: "Although they are still too costly to be fully scalable, this will soon change, and lab-grown meats will provide a real solution to environmental harm caused by livestock agriculture."
date: "2017-06-07"
modified: "2017-06-07"
authors:
  - name: "Karla Lant"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/karla"
url: "https://futurism.com/are-lab-grown-meats-really-the-future-of-food"
categories:
  - "Food"
  - "Future Society"
tags:
  - "climate change"
  - "cruelty-free meats"
  - "lab grown meat"
  - "livestock greenhouse gases"
---

# Are Lab-Grown Meats Really the Future of Food?

![lab-grown meat livestock greenhouse gases cruelty-free meats climate change](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Ducklorange-edit.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: \<a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5674c0c22399a3a13cbc3af2/t/58c94a213a041171cffbd67a/1489586722681/Duck+l%27orange.jpg" target="\_blank"\>Memphis Meats\</a\>\</em\>*

## Cost Of Cruelty-Free Meat

Technology is teaming up with cuisine to provide realistic alternatives to meat, and the first prototype products are starting to interest consumers. Mimicking the taste, [texture](<https://futurism.com/tackling-challenge-texture-lab-grown-meat>), look, and smell of meat isn't easy, and creating these first few products demands a significant investment from companies. However, more companies are taking a chance on synthetic meats, hoping for major returns in the long run.

In 2016, Beyond Meat became, arguably, [the first startup](<https://qz.com/997565/in-four-years-the-price-of-lab-grown-meat-has-fallen-by-96-theres-still-a-long-way-to-go/>) to bring a plant-based meat alternative — one that could really stand in for real meat — to grocery stores. Impossible Foods, its main competitor, is instead [approaching restaurants first](<https://qz.com/939320/a-startup-says-it-can-now-produce-enough-for-4-million-meatless-burgers-a-month/>) with the intention of penetrating the grocery market later.

Other companies are literally growing synthetic meats, called “cellular-agriculture meats,” fiber by fiber in labs. These are extremely expensive to produce, but their prices are falling fast. The price of the first lab-grown beef burger, created by Mosa Meats, was equivalent to about $1.2 million per pound, retail. Now, lab-grown hamburger runs for [about $11.36 per pound](<https://futurism.com/were-5-years-away-from-lab-grown-meat-hitting-store-shelves>), similar to the Beyond Meat alternative which goes for about $12 per pound — although both are still out of reach for most consumers. In contrast, ground beef retails for around $3.54 per pound on average.

Meanwhile, [Memphis Meats](<https://futurism.com/were-5-years-away-from-lab-grown-meat-hitting-store-shelves>) is currently in the process of [growing chicken meat](<https://futurism.com/researchers-unveiled-the-first-chicken-meat-grown-without-chickens>) in the lab. Although comparatively, its retail price of $6,000 per pound is much more accessible than $1.2 million, it still has a way to go before it will be attainable for consumers.

![](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/labgrown-meat_v2.png>)

## Kinder To The Environment

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), livestock feed production eats up [26% of the ice-free land](<https://futurism.com/the-future-of-protein-heres-how-lab-grown-meat-is-transforming-our-future>) on Earth, and 13 billion hectares (32.1 billion acres) of forest are lost to land conversion for pastures or cropland annually. Livestock farming also contributes to [about 14.5%](<https://futurism.com/how-lab-grown-meat-could-be-the-future-of-food>) of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. All of this damage could be alleviated by transitioning to lab-grown meats.

Scaling — the ability to consistently meet demand in a cost-effective way — is the main problem holding lab-grown meats back. Although companies are working toward solutions, animal-free meat will not be affordable for average consumers before 2020. Still, Impossible Foods CEO Patrick Brown aims to completely replace the meat industry by producing [more realistic meat alternatives](<https://futurism.com/production-is-ramping-up-on-these-meatless-burgers-that-bleed>) with products like [whole turkeys](<https://futurism.com/lab-grown-meat-startup-may-add-thanksgiving-turkey-to-the-menu>), and companies like Tyson are [investing in his idea](<https://futurism.com/lab-grown-meat-tyson-is-making-a-massive-investment-in-a-meatless-future>). For now, that’s just a pipe dream, but if lab-made and plant-based meats can prove to be friendlier to the environment, healthier, and cost effective, they might just have a fighting chance.

### Author social links  
[LinkedIn](<https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlalant>)  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/KarlaLant>)