SuperMeat unveils ‘first ever’ cultivated turkey
Israeli foodtech company SuperMeat has announced it has successfully created the first ever cultivated turkey.
It is the only lab-grown turkey and cold cut product to have been developed so far in the cultivated meat space, according to the start-up.
SuperMeat is already known for its slaughter-free cultivated chicken, which is made by growing chicken cells into muscle, fat, and other tissues in a bioreactor. The company says its product has a longer shelf life than fresh poultry, and is free from antibiotics.
“We are thrilled to introduce a cultivated turkey product as part of our line of high-quality poultry,” said Ido Savir, CEO of SuperMeat. “This is the next step toward commercialisation of delicious, sustainable and animal friendly meat in the foreseeable future”.
News of the creation of cultured turkey meat comes just as Upside Foods has been granted FDA approval for its cultivated chicken in the US.
SuperMeat hopes its latest development will eventually prove popular with the American population given that turkey often features heavily during the country’s Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations. “Cultivated meat for US consumers is just around the corner”, it says.
The unveiling of the cultivated turkey is part of several steps the company is taking to advance its commercialisation, such as developing an open-source system which can identify the most cost-effective cell feed and reduce industry production expenses.
The start-up has also entered several new partnerships in the past two years, including one with Japanese multinational food and biotech company Ajinomoto, which will help SuperMeat establish a commercially viable supply chain platform for the cultured meat industry; and another with Migros, Switzerland’s biggest supermarket chain and meat manufacturer, to develop the necessary infrastructure for the eventual sale of lab-grown chicken.
Last year, SuperMeat also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with one of Europe’s largest poultry producers, PHW Group.
While Singapore is currently the only country worldwide to allow the sale of cultivated meat, SuperMeat is able to showcase some of its products at its production facility test kitchen and restaurant, ‘The Chicken’ in Israel, where visitors can see how food engineers grow the product from chicken cells to real meat, and how chefs can incorporate the product into dishes.
