Lamb gets the high-tech treatment

Future Meat Technologies, a cultivated meat company, unveiled lab-cultivated lamb meat that’s developed using non-GMO technology.

The company asserts its lab-developed ground lamb meat carries the attributes of biological ground lamb meat, including taste, appearance and cooking attributes, making it a suitable alternative for applications like burgers and kababs.

"Since lamb has a uniquely distinct flavor, it is very clear if a cultivated substitute is on or off the mark. The reason Future Meat's cultivated lamb is indistinguishable from conventional lamb is because it is, first and foremost, real meat,” Michael Lenahan, general manager of Future Meat, said in a press release, adding that Future Meat’s product “sizzles, sears and tastes” like conventional lamb.

The cultivated lamb is developed using fibroblast cells isolated from Awassi sheep. Tapping proprietary technology, the fibroblasts generate two independent ovine cell lines that divide indefinitely.

“Future Meat has been the first company to remove fetal bovine serum, and all other animal components, from its growth media," Yaakov Nahmias, president, founder and chief science officer of Future Meat, said in the release. "Future Meat's approach leans on the natural spontaneous immortalization of fibroblasts, rather than genetic modification. This is the key to Future Meat's cells being non-GMO."

The technological advancements employed by Future Meat could solve two critical problems facing lab-cultivated meats: time and cost. Early methods of producing lab-cultivated meat are time-intensive, costly and difficult to scale, creating demand for innovative solutions that can meet mainstream demand.

In 2021, Future Meat said it achieved a cost of $1.70 per breast of cultivated chicken which the company plans to launch first among its line-up of cultivated meats—in restaurants before hitting retail stores.

Future Meat, a top-funded cultivated meat company that raked in $347 million in 2021 in partnership with ADM Ventures, opened a cultivated meat production line in Israel in 2021, and announced plans to break ground for a new production facility in the U.S. in early 2023. The new U.S. production facility is intended to support the company’s efforts to scale up production of its cultivated meat products and its plans to enter the U.S. market.

Future Meat is just one of many companies answering the call for solutions that can bring lab-grown meat to market. Netherlands-based Meatable uses proprietary technology to create its cultivated pork sausage, which is expected to hit the market by 2025.