If the pet food industry were a country, it would rank as the world’s 60th biggest emitter of carbon dioxide. In countries such as the US, researchers estimate that pet food accounts for about a quarter of total meat consumption. And as the number of pets grows, the environmental impact looks set to increase. But the British government may have unlocked a solution. This year, the UK became the only country in Europe to approve the use of lab-grown meat in pet food.
Lab-grown meat may sound futuristic, but the process is actually straightforward. It starts with the harvesting of a small number of animal cells, then the cells are fed essential nutrients to help them replicate and grow, similar to a yeast culture on a petri dish. But unlike a whole living animal, there are fewer limitations on size, there are no welfare concerns, and the setup does not require such vast land, water and energy resources.
Talk of growing meat in a lab often makes people feel uncomfortable. In a world of genetic modification, E numbers and ultra-processing, we have learned that artificial equals bad. But lab-grown meat is not an artificial food; biologically it is meat. The difference is simply the method – a method not unfamiliar to anyone who nursed a sourdough starter during lockdown.
By contrast, the food most of us feed our pets today is full of artificial ingredients. While alive, farm animals are pumped full of antibiotics before being churned through a mass slaughter operation that is so unhygienic that meat is regularly infected with salmonella and other pathogens. Before it’s tinned up, synthetic preservatives and artificial flavours are often added to extend shelf life and improve taste. As a result, some pet owners are turning to alternative brands offering only whole meats and unprocessed ingredients. But you’d still be hard pressed to argue that organic grass-fed beef for a gluten-intolerant chihuahua is really a return to nature.
Compared with that, lab-grown meat provides a purer meat product that is free from infection and is genuinely cruelty-free. More than this, lab-grown meat is an important solution to the unsustainable environmental impact of a booming industry. According to estimates from the European Environment Agency, lab-based meat cultivation uses 45% less energy than traditional beef farming; if powered by renewable energy, research suggests a 92% reduction in overall greenhouse gas emissions, plus water and land use reductions of 78% and 95% respectively. Doggy dinner time has significant real-world consequences.
In Europe, lab-grown meat is still making its way through the often lengthy regulatory approval process. But its success is far from a given in an economic bloc where a strong farming lobby has a history of campaigns against products – and even nomenclature – that might endanger the meat and dairy industry. The term “vegan milk” has been outlawed because of its potential to confuse unwitting European consumers. Rightwing administrations in particular have fought back, with Giorgia Meloni’s government last year describing cultured meat as a threat to Italian culture as it implemented an outright ban on production.
Globally, the picture looks similar. While the US has actually approved lab-grown meat even for human use, a reversal may be brewing. Florida and Alabama have joined Italy in kneejerk bans, with the Florida state representative Dean Black declaring that “real meat is made by God himself”; other Republican states may follow and the meat lobby has trained its sights on the president-elect.
Against this backdrop, the UK’s departure from the EU may provide an upside. The question then is: how quickly can we benefit? As the nascent industries in Europe and the US become embroiled in regulatory tangles and face down the wrath of God – or at least of the Republican party – the UK has an opportunity to profit from an industry on the brink of an economic boom.
To do so, government action is needed – and regulatory approval was only the first step. The next challenge is reducing the cost of production. Meatly, the UK-based pet food business granted approval for their product in July, have made significant progress in increasing the yields from their starter cells (or “culture medium”) but they are not yet producing at commercially viable levels. To help get lab-grown pet food on to shelves worldwide, the British government should throw its weight behind the fledgling industry, providing financial assistance to aid research and development.
Government subsidies for food production are nothing new: UK farmers are provided with more than £2bn from the public coffers each year. However, while subsidies for traditional agriculture are needed to prop up the domestic industry long term, the cultivated meat industry needs only an initial boost to help it reach commercial viability. This is good news not just for domestic food security and for the environment – in a global pet food industry projected to be worth $500bn (£400bn) by 2030, it would also reap significant rewards for the post-Brexit British economy.
Ultimately, pet food should be only the beginning. While we may be a while away from swapping chateaubriand tartare for a lab-grown alternative, a next step might be the ready meal and fast food industries, which could easily swap ultra-processed products for a purer form of meat, free from the environmental and welfare burden. The food of the future will be healthier, kinder and more sustainable. If the UK seizes the competitive advantage now, it will lead the pack in reaping the rewards.
