Scotch egg created with sausage meat grown in lab using cells from cow
The store that invented the Scotch egg has hatched a new scientific version – made with sausage meat grown in a lab.
Posh retailer Fortnum & Mason first created the snack in 1738. And its latest version contains a quail’s egg encased in meat that has been grown from cells plucked from a sedated Aberdeen Angus cow. That might sound unappetising to some, but taste testers, who had to sign a waiver before tucking in, disagreed.
One said: “It tasted very good: meaty.” And Fortnums’ chef Alli-staire Lawrence said the lab meat had “a good flavour profile”.
Fortnums created the snack with Ivy Farm – an Oxfordshire producer that is in talks with the Government about getting its cultivated meat approved. The store hopes its Scotch egg will be on shelves by the start of 2025.
A classic Scotch egg (Daily Mirror)But Natasha Smith, of the Food Standards Agency, said industry demands for “rapid approval processes” must be balanced with “protecting public health”.
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The scotch egg is not the only product using lab grown meat that could soon be hitting the shelves.
Two childhood friends believe that synthetic pork fat is the key to revolutionising meat alternatives. Biologist Max Jamilly and mathematician Ed Steele co-founded Hoxton Farms in 2020 via Zoom and spent lockdown experimenting.
Unlike other lab-grown meat companies which make entire products, the pair are focusing on a fat substitute to be added to plant-based sausages and burgers.
They chose to focus on fat because, as Max says, “it is by far the most important sensory ingredient in all of the meat that we eat”. “When meat smells and sizzles and browns and tastes amazing, it’s because of fat. Pound for pound, it’s far more important for taste than muscle,” he added.
At their facility in Old Street, East London, their scientists grow the fat from stem cell biopsies, taken from a live pig.
They then bathe cells in vats of warm broth of plant-based sugars, salts and proteins, which can convince the cells they are inside a pig. After the cells have multiplied for around four weeks, they are harvested.
They have been experimenting by layering plant protein and the fat to create a cruelty-free pork belly. The friends hope products will be approved first in the US and Singapore, which have already signed off other lab-grown meat.
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