British pets eat more meat than British children. It’s an astonishing fact. But yes, pet animals account for 22 per cent of meat consumption in the UK. We are a nation of animal lovers, and since the pandemic pet ownership has been on the rise. But we are no outlier — globally, pets account for about 20 per cent of meat consumed.
Many animal lovers have dealt with the contradictions of slaughtering animals to feed other animals by putting their pets on vegan diets. Lewis Hamilton, the F1 driver, is probably the most famous example, switching his bulldog Roscoe to exclusively plant-based meals a few years ago.
But others feel uneasy with this — cats and dogs are naturally carnivorous and, some argue, require meat in their diets for their health.
Enter the London tech firm Meatly, a start-up which has just produced its first tins of lab-grown meat for cat food. It makes real meat — in this case chicken — but without killing a single animal. Instead chicken cells are extracted from a hen’s egg and replicated in a bioreactor, producing a chicken pâté-like dish. The implications for animal welfare and the climate are clear.
The company hopes to receive regulatory approval from Defra within three months and get its tins on the shelves by the end of the year. This is no pie-in-the-sky operation — it has received investment from Pets At Home, Britain’s largest pet supplies retailer, and former government food adviser Henry Dimbleby serves on its board.
This is a fascinating test case for the wider lab-grown meat industry. Despite huge interest in the field, and millions of pounds of investment, only two companies have successfully brought lab-grown meat to market so far globally: Upside Foods in Singapore and Eat Just in San Francisco. The regulation for novel foods is a quagmire; in the UK the application process takes at least two years and only two companies have applied so far. By targeting pets, Meatly has managed to circumnavigate most of this process.
It also tests the height of two further hurdles. First, can lab-grown meat be produced at a cost that people will be willing to pay for it? Meatly expects to produce each tin for about £1, about the price of other premium cat food. Second, will people buy it, or will the sense that this is some kind of “Frankenfood” put them off? Even if it is for their cats and dogs, pet lovers won’t put just anything in their bowls.
Around the world hundreds of tech-company founders — and their investors — are watching closely.
