Cultured or in vitro meat, also called “clean meat” by its supporters, is meat produced in a laboratory using bioengineering techniques.

In 2013, Mark Post, professor at Maastricht University, presented the first hamburger made of cultured meat. Since then, the dream of being able to create and consume meat based on “cellular agriculture”, without livestock farming, has gained support among both animal-rights activists and, especially, players in the industry. A large number of start-ups have been created, with many sponsored by big names in the food industry. The ambition is to market cultured beef, poultry or fish meat at an affordable price by 2020 or 2022.

With this goal in mind, in 2018 the US Food And Drug Administration established a regulatory framework and this has opened the way for the marketing of these products.

So, is artificial meat a true food revolution or an impossible utopia?