After the success of the plant-based meat industry leaders, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, the next food sensation is entering the game: 3D-printed steaks and chicken things.
That’s right, some startups across the world are getting ready to serve up realistic 3D-printed beef and chicken produced from plant protein as soon as next year. And, within a few years, the printers are likely to be available to buy so that consumers can produce their own at home.
The animal-free meat can be produced either from vegetable matter or from animal cells grown in a lab. The printer uses these raw ingredients, which come in a Nespresso-style cartridge, to build up a steak or chicken fillet that tastes like the real thing.
The incredible technology is set to offer a solution to the world’s current highly-unsustainable practices of mass meat production, which are taking a heavy toll on the environment. Reducing beef production would result in a huge reduction in CO2 emissions and far less clearance of wild countryside for grazing land.
This technology holds a whole lot of potential in terms of reducing the environmental impact that comes with raising meat. The only question is whether people will be off-put by the idea of eating meat from a 3D-printer.
