homehome Home chatchat Notifications


Cultivated bacon could soon be a reality, as a company readies its first tasing

Two restaurants in the San Francisco Bay area will offer dishes with lab-grown bacon.

Fermin Koop
August 4, 2020 @ 7:01 pm

share Share

The cultivated meat maker Mission Barns is now offering consumers a chance to try its brand-new bacon grown from real pork fat cells, produced without animal slaughter. A group between 50 and 100 individuals will be selected for a weeklong tasting in mid-August to be carried out in selected restaurants.

Proteins cultivated in this way aren’t available on the market anywhere yet, so this is an opportunity to find what meat grown from just a few cells tastes like.

Image credits: Cookbookman17 (CC BY 2.0)

Restaurants in the San Francisco Bay area will prepare dishes using Mission Barns bacon, one being Cockscomb in San Francisco and the other an Oakland-based restaurant yet to be named. Cockscomb is owned by Chef Chris Cosentino, who won Bravo’s Top Chef Masters in 2012.

The dishes will be prepared by Mission Barns director of product development, Chef Michael Wallace. The restaurants will serve them at no cost for the tastes. They will have to sign a waiver as the product isn’t approved for commercial sale yet, as well as provide feedback to the company. However, the food won’t be served inside due to the current coronavirus pandemic.

“We definitely are looking for a diverse set of folks in terms of palates and backgrounds,” Eitan Fischer, CEO and Co-Founder of Mission Barns, told Forbes. This means high-end chefs but also “everyday people who really know and really like bacon,” she added.

The company hopes that its cultivated bacon can measure up to the real thing. Mission’s bacon is manufactured with pork fat and a mix of plant-based ingredients for texture. It’s grown from cells instead of processing parts of a butchered animal, as Fischer describes it.

The pork cells are fed with a mix of nutrients and sugar to grow and fatten up until you essentially have a slice of bacon. While the process can be expensive for most cuts of meats, it’s much cheaper for fat cells. And since bacon is mostly pork fat, Mission Barns can move forward with its products.

“Our process begins by isolating cells from an animal and placing them in a warm cultivator which mimics the animal’s body. The cells grow naturally as they do in a cow, chicken, or pig as we feed them nutrients including vitamins, sugars, and proteins. After the cells fatten the cultivation process is complete. We then harvest the meat, throw it on a pan, and enjoy,” the company describes.

Nevertheless, there’s still a long way to go. The company has already reached the scale of production to supply to a small number of restaurants but it doesn’t expect to sell its bacon this year. Alongside Missions Barns, there are other 36 companies around the world working to make cultured proteins a reality.

Different companies are now working on different products. BlueNalu is working on seafood, while East Just and chicken giant KFC are working on chicken nuggets. These efforts and the upcoming tasting by Mission Barns could mean commercialization of cultured proteins might soon be a reality.

share Share

Biggest Modern Excavation in Tower of London Unearths the Stories of the Forgotten Inhabitants

As the dig deeper under the Tower of London they are unearthing as much history as stone.

Millions Of Users Are Turning To AI Jesus For Guidance And Experts Warn It Could Be Dangerous

AI chatbots posing as Jesus raise questions about profit, theology, and manipulation.

Can Giant Airbags Make Plane Crashes Survivable? Two Engineers Think So

Two young inventors designed an AI-powered system to cocoon planes before impact.

First Food to Boost Immunity: Why Blueberries Could Be Your Baby’s Best First Bite

Blueberries have the potential to give a sweet head start to your baby’s gut and immunity.

Ice Age People Used 32 Repeating Symbols in Caves Across the World. They May Reveal the First Steps Toward Writing

These simple dots and zigzags from 40,000 years ago may have been the world’s first symbols.

NASA Found Signs That Dwarf Planet Ceres May Have Once Supported Life

In its youth, the dwarf planet Ceres may have brewed a chemical banquet beneath its icy crust.

Nudists Are Furious Over Elon Musk's Plan to Expand SpaceX Launches in Florida -- And They're Fighting Back

A legal nude beach in Florida may become the latest casualty of the space race

A Pig Kidney Transplant Saved This Man's Life — And Now the FDA Is Betting It Could Save Thousands More

A New Hampshire man no longer needs dialysis thanks to a gene-edited pig kidney.

The Earliest Titanium Dental Implants From the 1980s Are Still Working Nearly 40 Years Later

Longest implant study shows titanium roots still going strong decades later.

Common Painkillers Are Also Fueling Antibiotic Resistance

The antibiotic is only one factor creating resistance. Common painkillers seem to supercharge the process.