‘No Kill’ Meat has finally hit the shelves. Meat grown in a lab is being sold in a shop in the UK. Beginning of the end of Factory Farming?
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/06/nx-s1-5288784/uk-dog-treats-lab-grown-meat-carbon-emissions
‘No Kill’ Meat has finally hit the shelves. Meat grown in a lab is being sold in a shop in the UK. Beginning of the end of Factory Farming?
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/06/nx-s1-5288784/uk-dog-treats-lab-grown-meat-carbon-emissions
42 Comments
It has finally happened, it is in [every](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/feb/06/uk-pets-at-home-world-first-lab-grown-meat-dog-treats) [United](https://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/news/AN_1738930957533320200/in-brief-agronomics-investee-meatly-launches-lab-grown-meat-for-pets.aspx) [Kingdom](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14363291/dog-lab-grown-meat-cultivated-treat-sale-UK.html) [newspaper](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/cultivated-meat-dog-treat-lab-grown-meat-uk-meatly-b1209478.html), [it](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy12ejz0mwo) [is](https://www.npr.org/2025/02/06/nx-s1-5288784/uk-dog-treats-lab-grown-meat-carbon-emissions) [global](https://www.theverge.com/news/607310/meatly-lab-grown-meat-dog-food-treat-pets-at-home-uk) [news](https://news.sky.com/story/would-your-dog-eat-lab-grown-food-pet-treats-made-from-cultivated-meat-go-on-sale-13303862), it is being discussed in every school, every [university](https://bristol.ac.uk/news/2025/february-/cultured-meat-in-pet-food.html), in workplaces across the old country. A truly once in a generation event. **The technological marvel of lab grown meat has finally hit the shelves.** On sale, right now, in limited edition, for everyone’s favourite little fuzzy friends in the UK’s largest pet retailer.
A quick recap to those not in the know, Lab Grown / Cultivated / Cultured / No Kill meat is the art of brewing meat from a tiny sample cell into full burgers without ever having to harm an animal, real meat without the pain and slaughter. [99% of meat farming in America is brutal factory farming](https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estimates) while [95% of people are very concerned about the welfare of farm animals](https://awionline.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/fa-consumer_perceptionsoffarmwelfare_-112511.pdf) and with [84% of Vegetarians returning to eat meat](https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/animals-and-us/201412/84-of-vegetarians-and-vegans-return-to-meat-why#:~:text=84%25%20of%20Vegetarians%20and%20Vegans,Psychology%20Today%20United%20Kingdom) it is obvious that people care but people crave the real thing. Let’s solve the problem, as ever, with technology. Cultivated meat is heading to take up[ 99% less land, use 96% less freshwater and emit 80% less greenhouse gas](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/19/lab-grown-meat-could-exacerbate-climate-change-scientists-say.html) than traditional production in a process that is [actually very similar to fermenting beer.](https://gfi.org/cultivated/addressing-cultivated-meat-challenges/)
**All without ever harming an animal. We simply skip the cow and brew the burger.**
**TLDR; Cultivated meat is finally for sale on shelves, real meat without the killing.**
If it’s safe to eat as well as being equally nutritious, tastes good, and is priced competitively with traditional meat sources, it’s eventually going to be the norm.
Is it cheaper energy wise as well? I remember that being an issue long ago
I hope this turns out to be both good tasting, healthy AND affordable.
I love eating meat, but the fact that animals need to die for it has always bothered me. Would immediately make the switch.
It’s still factory farming, just without brains being raised.
I’ve been making ‘no kill’ meat for years by just letting my cow recover.
As long as it tastes the same I really don’t have a problem with this. I say this as the most grizzly carnivore there can be.
Why should it be the beginning of the end of factory farming? Why can’t they co-exist?
Predicting the end to factory farming seems a bit premature.
You seriously couldn’t have included “as dog treats” in the title? The word you’re looking for is “disingenuous”.
I remember when the Yogscast talked about this happening on one of their first podcasts.
Simon being revolted about meat grown in vats was hilarious
most important part of any steak is the marbling. would love to see a picture of what this looks like. i find it hard to believe that could be replicated.
Well, these are dog treats, and not entirely meat, they mix it with plant based ingredients as well. So maybe that can be used to make people food too, but we’ll see. I hope. It also needs to be more energy efficient than raising livestock to be viable
Unless it starts packing the same nutritional values as traditional meat, I doubt this will come even close to kill farmed meat, as usual.
We already have chemical slobs that provide calories and artificial taste similar to meat (but, again, if you don’t like meat why would you want to eat a rip off, never understood it, it’s like I shaped my steak in the form of broccoli for whatever reason. Eat vegetables and be happy).
My mother just had a few health issues and the obvious doctor advice was “eat more red meat” which fixed her problems in few months. Doubt this will substitute that lol, at least based on the papers I previously read.
If the mods here are looking to do a mass purge of commenters who don’t read the article, this post presents an excellent opportunity.
Hell yeah. Also people should be wary of the agricultural industry ramping up biased news articles and social media content to try their best to halt this.
Have you seen the taste tests?
It’s not even close to being like real meat. Nutritionaly subpar, taste horrible, texture like mush.
It’s a way for the few elite rich to take over an industry that is fine the way it is.
No. Besides it won’t taste as good as the non-lab one. Whistle when dry aged it has the same funk.
Does that means I can get a 3 kilo big chunk of chicken thigh?
give me synth meat with half the calories and double the protein!
You’ve popped up on my feed twice now. Is this the Agronomics stock?
It’s the same processed crap that comes in a box, but it’s more sustainable and ethical, it’s just better.
The article is about dog treats.
The image isn’t an error.
People only looking at the thumbnail are going to be a bit concerned when combining with the title
“was there a scandal involving Pets at Home feeding their unwanted rabbits into the meat grinder to end up on our plates?!”
People used to view lab grown diamonds the same way, now they are practically the norm, and look how far plant based protein alternatives have come.
i would (Not) kill for a good Steak. hope its good
Cultivated meat will profoundly change the world. It cannot come soon enough. Glad to see this is moving forward outside of Singapore.
And for those saying “it is just dog treats” – it is a step in validating the supply chain. It is the start of proving we can mass produce this food.
On dragon’s den they recently had a startup making lab grown chicken for cat food, because cat’s are carnivores so require meat unlike dogs
I’m curious to know how lab-grown meat compares to traditional meat in terms of resource consumption in the production process.
Meat producers will make this illegal long before its ready to replace meat
I listened to an NPR segment on this that included the CEOs of the two leading companies making this. The main take away I got was the biggest issue is scaling. There are two restaurants in the US one on each coast, and the company that supplies them can only support a limited menu and only two locations. They got the creating the product figured out now their working on efficiency/speed of production. And to be able to scale to the point of replacing traditional cattle farming is impossible at present time.
Fun fact: they also said in the interview that it is theoretically possible that in time the ability to create a lab grown version of all types of living or non living animals.
Have you ever wanted to try a real brontosaurus burger? Well here you go. I thought that was pretty cool.
Every time I look into lab grown meat, it seems like the general scientific consensus is that lab grown meat is very pricey to produce and would be prohibitively expensive to scale upwards to compete with the demand in western countries, along with being way more environmentally taxing than traditional methods on that scale.
People want to peddle it as the future of meat consumption, but if you look past the venture capital money I’ve never found any realistic projections that would suggest that it’ll be cost effective and made in large enough quantities to be truly disruptive to the market, at least not any time soon. Maybe I only read really cynical journalism and have overlooked the most convincing studies, but I kind of doubt it.
As usual, it seems like the real solution to the meat industry question is a much more mundane, boring, “just stop eating as much meat” approach. I stopped buying meat at the grocery store a few years ago because it got too expensive for my budget, and I haven’t really missed it.
£3.50 for 50g
Over twice the price of high quality treats we regularly use for our dog.
These will be staying on the shelf.
Maybe the beginning of the beginning of the beginning.
Cultured/lab grown meat first became popular as an innovation around 2016/17. It’s still too expensive to be competitive, and the kill industry has consolidated with corporations buying up a lot of farmers and small scale plants in the midwest (the decline in family farms in states like Iowa) is alarming. Corporations still manage to produce inexpensive meat.
So lab grown meat developments worthy of support and encouragement won’t mark an end until the cost of buying and consuming inexpensive killed meat stops being cheaper and more affordable. Especially with stifled incomes in the middle and working class, ie in the US. Being ethical is becoming more and more of a luxury people that want to be ethical just can’t afford, when they look at their rising rents or mortgages and are living paycheck to paycheck.
I hope that threshold gets crossed, soon, and it becomes more affordable to buy and eat lab grown meat.
Man were really getting close to a zombie apocalypse with this.
It’s one thing to synthetically alter plants. But the cell structure of an animal? I dont know
Hey man, i’m excited too but as others are pointing out, you can’t sensationalize headlines like this.
The UK Pet retailer is not selling meat for humans, its dog food. Nice 1st steps i guess, but total click bait.
This stuff pretty much died in the US after a period of hype. I think people just didn’t like the taste or something.
In the US some states are banning Lab grown meat. Florida, Alabama and Iowa have already, I am sure more will soon follow. Probably has to do with the farming Lobbyist.
Don’t eat this stuff, we’re already getting sick from all the additives and weird stuff in food, how can fake meat be any different?
I’ve read/watched way too much sci -fi to trust this lab meat
Cost and safety will be the two big deals. Naturally trying this with pets first makes perfect sense given those two. Lower cost to make food for animals and if a dog gets a stomachache it isn’t a scandal.
I want this to work, because I do imagine the sheer amount of land and resources we could save once parity is reached, if we can make it that efficient. But right now there’s a fairly decent amount of questions, energy and water usage, quality, etc.