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KFC is working with a Russian 3D bioprinting firm to try to make lab-produced chicken nuggets:
KFC is trying to create the world’s first laboratory-produced chicken nuggets, part of its “restaurant of the future” concept, the company announced. 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.
KFC plans to provide the bioprinting firm with ingredients like breading and spices “to achieve the signature KFC taste” and will seek to replicate the taste and texture of genuine chicken.
It’s worth noting that the bioprinting process KFC describes uses animal material, so any nuggets it produced wouldn’t be vegetarian. KFC does offer a vegetarian option at some of its restaurants; last year it became the first US fast-food chain to test out Beyond Meat’s plant-based chicken product, which it plans to roll out to more of its locations this summer.
Bioprinted nuggets would be more environmentally friendly to produce than standard chicken meat, KFC says, citing (but not linking to) a study by the American Environmental Science and Technology Journal it says shows the benefits of growing meat from cells, including reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption compared to traditional farming methods.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by acid andy on Sunday July 19 2020, @11:24PM (1 child)
I'll say this in case no-one else does. If you're veggie or even if you care even slightly about animal welfare, I'd give it a miss. Vegetarian option or not, you'd still be funding (albeit perhaps indirectly) some of the most brutal factory farming on a vast scale. Factory poultry farms often debeak their chicks and the animals may be fed growth hormones and often have so little space that they will pluck out their own feathers from the stress.
On Wikipedia, with a citation from 2011, it does however say that:
Of course to what degree that pledge has been followed and what precisely is meant by "animal friendly" remains to be seen.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mykl on Monday July 20 2020, @02:54AM
An alternative perspective.
If nobody tries KFC's new "Less cruel" alternatives, then they will deem them a commercial failure and go back to de-beaking and roiding up baby chickens.
I think it's encouraging that KFC is looking to move beyond farming. At the moment, this still requires the input of actual animal product, but I can see a future not too far off where the entire thing can be sustained without any living animal involvement (even if the original cells did come from animals). Once the lab-grown meat has the same intelligence as, say, yeast, it could be considered functionally identical.