Eco- and Animal-Friendly Lab-Grown Meat Now Gaining Commercial and Private Funders
For
Immediate Release:
June
25, 2012
Contact:
Shakira
Croce 202-483-7382
Norfolk, Va. -- In 2008, when PETA announced a $1 million prize for the first laboratory to use chicken cells to create in vitro (test tube) meat if the product were commercially viable by June 30, 2012, few people believed that there would ever be such a thing. Back then, there was no public awareness of this quiet scientific endeavor, and the scientists who had pioneered the idea of chicken meat grown in a laboratory vat of nutrients were in danger of giving up because of a lack of money as funding is vital to the research-and-development process. Now, though, everything has changed: PETA's contest put in vitro meat on the map, spawning hundreds of news stories and creating a buzz that resonated around the world. Since then, sponsorships have blossomed to include a grant of more than $1 million to a Dutch research team and the first-ever taste test of an in vitro hamburger developed by Dr. Mark Post and scheduled for October. The leader in PETA's contest is widely considered to be Dr. Gabor Forgacs of the University of Missouri and Modern Meadow, the first scientist in North America to produce and consume a tissue-engineered meat product. He is currently developing methods for commercial production.
But while cow, pig, and fish cells are being grown in vitro, PETA's primary interest is in replacing chicken factories, transport, and slaughter because more than 1 million chickens are eaten every hour in the U.S. alone. As there is no news of a chicken nugget on the immediate horizon, PETA will extend the contest until 2013. PETA continues to fund in vitro meat researcher Dr. Nicholas Genovese, who is part of a team working on the subject at the University of Missouri.
"There are so many delicious vegan products on the market that taste like chicken, with more on the way, that people are already switching over," says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. "But lab chicken is grown from flesh, and if that's what some people still want to put in their mouths, PETA will help deliver it." She points out that at a taste test at PETA's headquarters in Norfolk last weekend of vegan chicken—not made in vitro—from Holland's Vegetarian Butcher, more than 80 people asked if the samples were actual chicken. The tasters sampled vegan chicken and dumplings, fried "chicken," and faux chicken Waldorf salad.
Last week, Bill Gates gave a shout-out to vegan chicken, especially mentioning Biz Stone's new company, The Obvious Corporation, which is supporting vegan-meat company Beyond Meat. Gates pointed out that because meat is one of the greatest contributors to climate change and because meat consumption contributes to our national chronic-disease epidemic, turning to plant protein is in the cards.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.