As part of its vision for the ‘restaurant of the future’, KFC is working alongside a Russian 3D Bioprinting firm to create chicken meat, which will allegedly taste and feel like the real thing but with minimal negative impact on the environment.
The idea of crafting the ‘meat of the future’ arose in response to the growing popularity of a healthy lifestyle and nutrition, the annual increase in demand for alternatives to traditional meat, and the need to develop more environmentally friendly methods of food production.
The chicken restaurant chain will work with Russian company 3D Bioprinting Solutions to develop bioprinting technology that will “print” chicken meat, using chicken cells and plant material, allowing it to reproduce the taste and texture of chicken meat almost without involving animals in the process.
To achieve the signature taste of the nuggets, KFC plans to provide the bioprinting firm with ingredients like breading and spices and will seek to replicate the taste and texture of genuine chicken.
According to the chain, the bioprinted nuggets would be more environmentally friendly to produce than standard chicken meat, since growing meat from cells leads to less associated greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption compared to traditional farming methods.
What’s more, the company reports that biomeat has exactly the same microelements as the original product, while excluding various additives that are used in traditional farming and animal husbandry, creating a cleaner final product.
The team hopes that a final product for testing will be available in late 2020.
