The Department of Agriculture has already given the go-ahead for two Bay Area companies to sell lab-grown chicken to restaurants, and now another San Francisco firm is looking to make its cell-cultivated pork available at stores and eateries.
Mission Barns founder and CEO Eitan Fischer has always been passionate about environmental sustainability and animal welfare, which is why his company has developed cell-cultivated pork.
He and his San Francisco-based team created pork with the conventional agricultural practices, all coming from one pig.
“Started with a small sample that we took from a live pig. We took that sample and fed it with base nutrients as the sample grew, we’re now able to make real pork just without having to slaughter the animal,” explained Fischer.
He and his team of scientists then combined that pork fat with pea protein.
“Being able to grow pork this way, this is really a new step in the evolution of agriculture where — for the first time — we don’t need to raise entire animals to grow the foods that we love,” he said.
The FDA has recently approved Mission Barns products, including cell-cultivated pork meatballs, sausages and bacon.
“Without needing repeat samples or additional pigs, through this system, we are able to take one pig’s cells and take them much farther than if we were to grow a pig conventionally,” Fischer said.
Mission Barns will soon be rolling out its products at Sprouts grocery stores in the Bay Area.
“Pork is the most consumed meat in the world, and has a very significant contribution to our greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.
He added that with influenzas like swine flu, along with bird flu transmitting to pigs, his methodology is sustainable.
“We’ve already seen avion influenza jump from birds to pigs, and threaten not just the pork supply but also human health in the country. By growing pork in a much more sustainable way, without requiring the dense confinement of animals the way we do in conventional agriculture, we’re significantly reducing the risk of these influenzas,” Fischer said.
Brandon Gillis, the founder of Fiorella restaurant in San Francisco, agreed.
“To cure or fix a lot of the problems that we have from an environmental and food, supply and safety chain standpoint that we need a host of solutions. Just relying on farm to table is not going to cut it in any way. I think what they’re doing has a lot of practical applicability,” Gillis said.
He is the first restaurateur to partner with Mission Barns to sell dishes made with cell-cultivated pork.
Gillis added that they will be starting off by hosting a dinner series once a week at Fiorella’s Sunset location using Mission Barns products. The neighborhood Italian restaurant owner also said that introducing cell-cultivated pork in a city that thrives off technology and innovation is beneficial.
“I feel as long as the products are really good and presented in a way that the consumer can understand and feel good — and it has to taste really good — I think people will be really receptive,” Gillis said.
But Dr. Ricardo San Martin, the director of Alt: Meat Lab at UC Berkeley, said that there’s a significant decline in trends for alternative meat products on the market.
“The economics are terribly bad. So even considering technological changes and being optimistic, it’s just non-scalable at a reasonable price or cost,” San Martin told CBS News Bay Area.
He added that the conversation in his class is how to find innovative ways to make the source of our foods more sustainable, rather than replicating yet another meat product.
“Bottom line, there are some challenges replicating nature that are doable, and some that are not doable no matter how smart you are and how much money you have. You cannot do everything. And with plants, we have a limited palette of ingredients, and it’s not like you can treat to do everything. You cannot treat plants to do fish, you cannot treat plants to one day taste like pork,” he added.
The professor also said that products that are cell-cultivated will still taste different, no matter the packaging.
“Fat is not 1%. I mean, it has to be around the percentage of real food, which is level 20. A burger may have 10 to 20% fat, so the more delicious burgers are the ones that have more fat. So you’re adding let’s say, 10% of a very expensive ingredient, with the claim that the already not so good taste notes in plant-based food are going to be masked by this,” he said.
Fischer, however, said this is a monumental moment in the food system. And he understands the challenges the competition of 100% pork products on the shelves.
“This is for the first time, the consumer can go to a supermarket and buy real pork made without a pig,” he said.
While there is no set date yet as to when the products will roll out in the grocery stores, Fischer said he has bigger goals for his mission.
“Our goal is to be competitive over time with conventional pricing. Of course, the products that we have with all the flavor and deliciousness that meatballs and bacon offer, don’t have the sustainability, animal welfare or health issues that some of the conventional meat products have,” he said.
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