India aiming for lab-grown 'ahimsa meat’ after advancements in IT and Electricity

HYDERABAD: On Friday the Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi said that clean meat which is successfully grown in labs from stem cells of animals is a major disruptive innovation after information technology and electricity. She was speaking at India’s first summit on ‘Future of protein-Food Tech Revolution’.

The minister said that a private survey has found that 66 percent of consumers are ready to accept lab-grown ‘ahimsa’ meat taken from stem cells and added that several top IT giants are investing in clean meat technology. “The survey has found 46 percent want to buy clean meat regularly and 53 percent wants to replace conventional meat with clean meat. Cellular meat is already available but has to be commercialised. If we allow other countries to distribute, it will be expensive. We need to bring in a second disruption where animal meat should be replaced with clean meat,” Maneka said.

Maneka advised CCMB to make the technology available so that the meat can be sold in the markets within the next five years. Front-Line research to develop open source data on cellular meat has to be done, and the open source data will make the technology accessible to small enterprises, she said. Experts at the summit said that meat breweries would come up in a few years like beer breweries when taken up to industrial scale.

They revealed that chicken producers like Venkys are all gossips regarding the technology. However, clean meat is priced high currently, and the regulatory mechanisms are yet to be put in place. Researchers said that like in beer brewing industries there is a likelihood of contamination of pathogens as meat is grown on a large scale.