In celebrating today’s groundbreaking announcement about final approvals for cultured chicken, The Good Food Institute listed a handful of environmental arguments for this new technology.
“Cultivated meat is anticipated to be nearly three times more efficient at converting feed into meat than chicken production, the most efficient form of conventional meat,” the institute said. “When produced at scale using renewable energy, cultivated meat could reduce:
- The carbon footprint by 92 percent
- Land use by 90 percent
- Water use by 66 percent compared to conventional beef production.
“With this massive decrease in land use, additional opportunities arise for carbon sequestration, renewable energy production and biodiversity protection,” the institute continued. “Cultivated meat also eliminates a key driver of zoonotic diseases and pandemics — raising animals for food.”
The Good Food Institute calls itself a nonprofit think tank working to advance cultivated meat and alternative protein innovation globally. “Today, Upside Foods and Good Meat received landmark grants of inspection from the [USDA allowing] them to sell their cultivated chicken products in the United States, marking a decisive moment in the history of food and agriculture," the institute concluded.
About the Author
Dave Fusaro
Editor in Chief
Dave Fusaro has served as editor in chief of Food Processing magazine since 2003. Dave has 30 years experience in food & beverage industry journalism and has won several national ASBPE writing awards for his Food Processing stories. Dave has been interviewed on CNN, quoted in national newspapers and he authored a 200-page market research report on the milk industry. Formerly an award-winning newspaper reporter who specialized in business writing, he holds a BA in journalism from Marquette University. Prior to joining Food Processing, Dave was Editor-In-Chief of Dairy Foods and was Managing Editor of Prepared Foods.