Meatable CEO says that resistance to cultivated meat was to be expected

Resistance from conservative politicians to meat made in a laboratory is something that is to be expected with any technological breakthrough, said Meatable CEO Krijn De Nood. The government of the far right conservative Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni introduced a law in Italy to prevent sales of "cultivated" meat.

Republican politicians in the United States are also trying to ban lab-grown meat. "This type of dynamic can be seen with any technological breakthrough," De Nood added.

The co-founder of Meatable spoke at the first tasting of a laboratory-made sausage in the Netherlands, which was also the first time this has been done in the European Union. "I think this is a part of it," he said about the criticism. "We are monitoring the developments with our American colleagues," De Nood shared.

Although Italy has introduced its own ban on cultivated meat, products containing this type of meat are not yet permitted in the European Union. Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida, a member of Melon's Fratelli d'Italia party, feared that this would disturb the long-time relationship between man and animals that has come from cattle breeding.

Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who leads the American state of Florida, also said he wants to ban the meat alternative.

De Nood said he sees a vital role for real meat that can be produced without slaughtering an animal, as it is better for animal well-being and the environment. In 2023, the University of California cast doubt on this last point. They calculated that cultivated meat has a much larger ecological footprint, mainly because the purification of nutrients for cells in the lab consumes a lot of energy.

Other scientists have not assessed this research, but it was still published online. "They have apologized for that since then," De Nood claimed, adding that the research "missed the point completely." De Nood said he believes that if Meatable begins production on an industrial scale, their version of pork will generate approximately 80 percent fewer emissions than when breeding and slaughtering real pigs.

Meatable said it expects to be able to produce cultivated meat for the same price as biological meat within five years. The meat will first be available in Singapore, the only place where cultivated meat could be tasted before the event in the Netherlands and then in the United States. The European Union will follow later, as getting permission will cost a lot of money and time.

The sausage tasting held by Meatable went well. The meat "definitely had the texture of a sausage," said noted chef Ron Blaauw, one of three people allowed to taste the company's sausage.

Prince Constantijn suggested that the word "substitute" was not accurate for Meatable's lab-grown meat. He added that this probably had more meat than an average sausage in England.