Chicken without the environmental destruction and the blood and killing? In a first for the world, Singapore has approved the sale of lab-grown chicken. We speak to the owner of Eat Just, the US-based company that has achieved this distinction, and an Indian biotechnologist who is hoping to do the same here.
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00:00There are 67 billion chickens that are killed every single year.
00:08Those chickens eat a lot of soy and corn.
00:10That soy and corn requires a lot of land and often that land ends up being where rainforests used to stand.
00:16And all the inputs from all the animals that we eat actually emit more greenhouse gas emissions
00:21than all the cars, buses, and planes that we all operate.
01:01It's been thousands of years where human beings have had to kill an animal to eat meat.
01:08So we think it's going to change the world because you don't need to do that anymore.
01:11You can get all the good stuff about animal protein, the nutritional composition, the taste, without all the bad stuff.
01:19The killing, the deforestation, the antibiotic use, the greenhouse gas emissions.
01:25So we think this is a significant milestone for the food system.
01:29You know, sometimes it takes a moment, and I think COVID-19 is a moment,
01:37where people realize that something is a little bit off with the way we're doing things.
01:45The world is in an urgent state and we need big solutions to solve these problems.
01:49I want to live in a world where the majority of meat that we're feeding our families doesn't require killing a single animal,
02:05doesn't require deforesting a single acre of land, doesn't require exposing our communities to zoonotic diseases.
02:14I want to run towards that world.
02:20We get a single cell from an animal. Animal can go on and live its life. We don't need to mess with them anymore.
02:25We identify nutrients to feed that cell, amino acids, vitamins, and then that cell doubles in a machine called a bioreactor.
02:33It's a clean, sanitary environment. The end result of it is real chicken, nutritionally real chicken,
02:41in terms of the nutrition, fat, protein, all the additional amino acids, in terms of flavor profile, in terms of allergenicity.
02:54It is the same, but it is the same because it is chicken.
02:59You know, that's the thing. It's not plant-based. It's not soy-based. It's chicken-based.
03:04It's just chicken-based without the environmental issues.
03:11We're living in a time of COVID-19, obviously, today, a zoonotic disease,
03:28which is a disease that jumps from a human to an animal to a human, partly because we bring lots of animals together in small spaces.
03:38We rip across their habitat. This significantly reduces the probability of zoonotic diseases in the future
03:46because when you compare some of the food safety, the microbiological elements, salmonella, E. coli,
03:54this is 99.9% less than conventional meat would be.
04:08The intention has been to give out some products to the community which can replace the traditional way of eating.
04:35We created our first POC, proof of concept, and that was minced chicken.
05:05We see ourselves hitting only 1% of the chicken market on those nights.
05:09Even if we are able to hit only 1% of the chicken market, the impact on the environment is tremendous.
05:15The killing of animals would considerably come down.
05:19The farmlands required to grow these animals would be reduced, and these would be available for plantation.
05:25Once they are available for plantation, the CO2 impact or CO2 emission impact would be regulated at a very significant level.
05:34Poultry or food is such a business which interlinks every business out there.
05:40So if you hit this business the right way, it will have a very long-term impact on all the channels environmentally.
05:50When you talk about alternative protein plant-based, soya has been in India for generations now.
05:56And suddenly because it was plated the right way to the right consumer, it started to make sense for everyone.
06:26Philosophically, what we're doing is very much aligned with the vegan and vegetarian movement.
06:32It's an idea that we need to eat in a way that is good for us and sustains the planet for our grandkids.
06:42In the next decades ahead, on a menu in Delhi or Mumbai or New York City or Shanghai,
06:52you will have chicken and beef that comes from this process that I'm describing, this no-kill meat product process.
07:01And you might have a few plant-based options too.
07:04But the conventional approach, it just will not be necessary anymore.
07:10But I think it's really exciting that there might be entrepreneurs in Delhi or Mumbai today that listen to this and say,
07:20man, why am I not going faster? I want to compete against this guy, right?
07:25We should be the biggest meat company in the world.
07:27The biggest meat company in the world shouldn't be coming out of the US.
07:29It should be coming out of India.
07:31And the truth is, it's not going to be just one company.
07:35They're going to be companies all across the world doing different things, right?
07:38Not just chicken, but lamb, not just lamb, but fish.
07:43I have an ego, of course. I want us to be the leaders.
07:45I can't stop that.
07:47But even more than that, in my lifetime, I want to get this thing done.