The grim reality that’s upon us is this — the world is running out of food. That is until promising results from leading food technology organizations like Atelier Meats give us a glimmer of hope with sustainable meat sources. The biotechnology lab hopes to revolutionize the way people think about their meat sources by leading research and development of cell-based food production.
“We are harnessing advanced biotechnology, combined with tissue engineering and process development to bring tasteful and delicious meats to the table,” shares Atelier Meats’ website. Through their groundbreaking research and processes, the multidisciplinary research and development project is on the brink of creating “structured meats” like steaks, pork chops, and chicken in a laboratory, which could help feed many generations to come.
Structured meats are a form of meat that most people wouldn’t imagine as a lab-developed product. It’s lightyears away from the more unstructured and ambiguous forms of meats like meatballs and nuggets, which are much easier to fabricate in a facility. Scientists can now create more complex and challenging forms of structured meat through Atelier’s breakthrough technology.
The startup project takes advantage of lab-grown technology to help create cultivated meats to produce quality meats that will help supplement food sources. Atelier Meats brings its internal team and the best experts from Rutgers University to advance innovations in tissue engineering, cell culture, process development, and quality systems integration, aiming to hopefully assemble an institution that could radically change how we grow meat.
Creating lab-grown structured meats can have many collateral benefits. Among them is cleaner air, as mass livestock production businesses contribute a large chunk of greenhouse gases. This new approach could also help achieve cleaner water as farming contributes significantly to water pollution, harming people who take water from contaminated sources. The technology will also lessen cases of malnutrition and hunger and minimize animal cruelty, among many other things.
At the top of Atelier Meats’ efforts is a value for food safety as it continues development and business planning. Many components come into play when developing structured meats. First, the company’s technology isolates the ECM (Extracellular Matric) that becomes the building blocks of the meat. They then develop lines of stem cells from the ECM to culture and expand the meed. Lastly, the technology helps populate the material to create high-quality structured meats. Throughout the process, Atelier does not use any form of genetic engineering. Instead, the innovation uses cultures of stem cells that are then used to mass-produce lab-grown meats.
Atelier’s cultivated meats also have the potential to create better-tasting meats free from any of the most common diseases that get transferred to humans upon consumption. The technology behind the startup’s approach to meat creation is one of a kind and could very well be one of the keys to changing the way we think about where and how we get our food.
Much of Atelier Meats’ work is still in research and development. Still, the team continues to work tirelessly to perfect their product as they hope to bring this potentially society-shaping technology to all parts of the world.
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