Cultivated meat is here that is not plant-based, involves no animal suffering and taste as good as the real thing. Cheddar News speaks with Eric Jenkusky, CEO of Matrix FT whose company provides technology that makes lab-grown meat possible. 

Cheddar's News Wrap

What You Need to Know About Lab-Grown Meat 

Welcome back to cheddar news wrap. So you're probably familiar with plant based meats and might have flipped an impossible burger or two, But have you ever thought of trying lab grown meat? What seems only possible in science fiction is now science fact, partly because of my next guest joining me now is Eric Jankowski, founder and Ceo of Matrix Food Technologies and eric your company doesn't make lab grown or cultivated, meets yourselves, but rather provides the technology that makes it possible. So can you tell us how the process works? Yes. We design and manufacture a three dimensional nano fiber scaffold that replicates what's known as the extra cellular matrix in every living organism. If you've ever seen the the museum exhibit called the body. And if you've seen that, you would have noticed a a white cheese cloth like fabric and that's the extra cellular matrix that all cells grow on. So our customers who are the actual meat producers, the cultivated meat producers, utilize our product by seeding a scaffold with their cells and then that scaffold helps provide direction and cues to those cells. So they form a solid piece of meat and you can make, they can make different meat, I guess, like chicken or beef. How hard is that process? Or what can I do with that? It's actually across the board. It's chicken, beef, pork, fish, lobster crustaceans, etcetera. So there's really a larger is even companies doing doing milk. So it's, it's really, it's really an interesting industry that's, that's going to grow very dramatically in the very near future? So how long does it take to grow a piece of chicken inside a lab and how clean is the environment that it needs to grow normally? These these processes are done in a clean room. One of the early names of the industry was calling it clean meat. And that's because the processes eliminate the cross contamination that occurs in the traditionally slaughtered meat by growing these products in a clean room environment. So how long could it take to make, let's say, a chicken leg? Uh, like a chicken nugget could take just a few weeks and it will have like the density, the exact same taste and feel of a chicken. Chicken right now, there's only one place in the world right now where you can actually purchase cultivated meat or lab grown meat. And that's in Singapore. The USDA and the FDA are in the process of finishing the regulations to allow the sale and consumption of cultivated meat here in the United States. But in Singapore, you can, you can actually go on Uber eats and order chicken nuggets delivered to your home, lab grown lab grown chicken nuts and Uber eats. So how many companies are using this kind of technology that you offer? Because I would think with plant based being so popular, This would be the next best thing, according to the Good Food Institute, there's 107 companies worldwide that are actually in the process of developing cultivated meat products and what what is like the reaction been from those who are looking for alternative solutions when it comes to their meat consumption? It's been very, very well, very well received. I think when people have an opportunity to make a decision between traditionally produced meat and meat that's sustainably and ethically produced, uh they're they're they're willing to give the ethically and sustainably produced meat a chance. It's incredible stuff. Eric Jankowski Ceo and founder of Matrix Food Technologies pretty much giving a glimpse of the future of clean meat and the future of alternative meat as well.