KFC has partnered with a Russian bioprinting company to bring 3D printed chicken nuggets to the menu.
Coined as the ‘meat of the future’, the lab-created chicken meat is KFC’s response to the growing demand for meat alternatives and the increasing need to develop more environmentally friendly methods of food production. It is also KFC’s next step in creating a ‘restaurant of the future'.
3D Bioprinting Solutions, the fast-food giant’s Russian partner. Is developing additive bioprinting technology using chicken cells and plant material to recreate the taste and texture of chicken meat, with almost no animal involved in the process. The lab-produced meat aims to achieve the signature KFC taste by using necessary ingredients such as breading and spices.
"3D bioprinting technologies, initially widely recognised in medicine, are nowadays gaining popularity in producing foods such as meat," said Yusek Khesuani, co-founder of 3D Bioprinting Solutions.
"In the future, the rapid development of such technologies will allow us to make 3D-printed meat products more accessible and we are hoping that the technology created as a result of our cooperation with KFC will help accelerate the launch of cell-based meat products on the market."
The advantages of utilising the bioprinting method include the absence of various additives used traditionally in farming and animal husbandry and the ethics of a production process that claims to not cause any harm to animals.
“The technology of growing meat from cells has minimal negative impact on the environment, allowing energy consumption to be cut by more than half, greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced 25-fold and 100 times less land to be used than traditional farm-based meat production,” KFC said in a statement.
The revelation of KFC working to create chicken of the future has come after the recent announcement from an Israeli start-up that is has created the first-ever 2D printed plant-based steak. You can read that story here.
