MEAT YOU COULD MAKE YOURSELF

No livestock and no labs needed. A collective in Japan has come up with a kit that could help people grow meat in a Petri dish (in very small portions)

- by HATTY WILLMOTH

Growing your own fruit and veg is nothing new. But what if you could grow your own meat in the comfort of your own home? That's what a company in Japan wants to make possible.

The Shojinmeat Project has developed a method for people to do just that. It's called cultivated meat, and it involves taking a few animal cells and helping them grow in a tank, or bioreactor. It's real meat, but it doesn't come via the typical farm and slaughterhouse route.

Yuki Hanu, the founder and director of the Shojinmeat Project, describes the company as a not-for-profit citizen science project, which aims to enable “restaurant chefs or hobbyists to grow designer meat in their premises”.

“We've been successful in establishing an entirely DIY version of animal cell culture protocols,” he says, explaining that the project provides people with instructions and a shopping list of items for cultivating small amounts of chicken at home.

The project is, at present, for educational and research purposes only, however, not for food production or consumption, which remain tightly regulated. It's also important to note that cultivated meat produced outside approved labs can't legally be sold or eaten in the UK.