The Times - UK (2020-07-21)

the times | Tuesday July 21 2020 1GM 17

News

For decades the challenge of creating
artificial meat has occupied scientists,
tech entrepreneurs and food aficiona-
dos. Billions has been spent trying to
produce laboratory-grown burgers,
steaks and bacon that satisfy carnivores
while limiting the environmental dam-
age of industrial farming. Now it is the
turn of the chicken nugget.
The American fast-food chain KFC
says it is building the world’s first lab-
grown chicken nuggets, joining an
increasing menu of artificial meats.
The skill with which foods are being
recreated in the lab has meant that
people are already accustomed to eat-
ing vegetarian burgers that “bleed” like
real meat. Fake beef that has much the
same flavour and texture as the real
thing has been produced by Silicon Val-
ley companies such as Impossible
Foods and Beyond Meat.
Last month an investment fund set
up by Bill Gates, the co-founder of
Microsoft, led a $3.5 million funding
round for a biotech start-up called

New secret recipe? KFC grows chicken nuggets in a lab

Tom Knowles
Technology Correspondent

Biomilq that is attempting to reproduce

human breast milk.

KFC is looking to join in on the action

by producing chicken nuggets from

animal cells alone. It will rely on 3D

printing technology to “print” the food.

The company says that its “biomeat”

will remove the additives used in tradi-

tional farming, “creating a cleaner final

product”, and cut down on energy con-

sumption and harm to animals. How-

ever, the product is based on animal

tissues so is not vegetarian.

KFC has partnered with 3D Bioprint-

ing Solutions, a biotech laboratory

founded by Russia’s largest private

medical company, Invitro, for the

project. The Russian lab creates 3D

printers that are able to produce tissue

and organ-based products. In 2018 one

of its printers was used to print human

cartilage tissue on the International

Space Station. The two companies say

that the cell-based chicken meat will be

as “close as possible” to standard chick-

en nuggets, with a product likely to be

ready by the autumn.

3D printing creates a product by add-

ing material layer by layer. Designers

produce a blueprint of what they want

to make then send this to the 3D printer

with the raw materials.

The process is still long and expen-

sive, however, and for a decade compa-

nies have been claiming that they can

reproduce meat from 3D printing,

without achieving much commercial

success.

In KFC’s case, scientists will take

stem cells from a chicken through a

biopsy and let the cells multiply into

clusters. Once these cells have multi-

plied to sufficient numbers they will be

put into a bio-cartridge alongside other

plant-based ingredients to help with

texture and taste. Instead of the ink

used in a traditional printer, the design-

ers use a “bio-ink” of live cells.

The printer lays down

layer after layer of

cells to grow a small

piece of muscle tis-

sue. This is then proc-

essed and seasoned for

the “signature KFC

taste”.

In 1931 Winston

Churchill wrote an

essay called Fifty Years

Hence about inventions that he felt

would soon arrive.

Alongside predic-

tions of growing ba-

bies in glass jars, he

envisaged scientists

growing chunks of

meat.

“We shall escape

the absurdity of

growing a whole

chicken in order to

eat the breast or wing

by growing these

parts separately

under a suitable medi-

um,” he wrote.

KFC is aiming for

nuggets that are still

finger-licking good

patrick kidd

TMS

[email protected] | @timesdiary

I say! Dan’s the

man we need

We have become used to artificial

crowd noise at sports events this

summer but why stop there? Peter

Fincham, a former controller of

BBC One, would also like artificial

commentators. He writes in The

Idler of an idea he once had at

Wimbledon (he admits it was after

a few corporate glasses of Pimm’s)

in which nostalgic viewers could

press the red button and hear Dan

Maskell, who died in 1992,

commentating on current

matches. “Almost any situation

would surely be matched by a line

he had once delivered in his fruity

voice,” Finchem says. “ ‘And with

that cross-court drop volley, the

plucky Norwegian now has two

match points’ or ‘that double fault

suggests the pressure is getting to

the champion’. Or simply, ‘I say!’ ”

With AI much improved, Fincham

feels the time is ripe. “We watch

period drama,” he says, “so what’s

wrong with period commentary?”

That said, artificial intelligence can

still be dumb. Sir Matthew Pinsent

was amused when Linkedin sent him

the details of his wife, Demetra, as a

“suggested connection” with whom

he might want to expand his

network. “We have three kids

together,” the Olympic rower replied,

“so I think we are good, thanks.”

virus stops graceful play

Another elite sporting event has

fallen victim to Covid. The

inter-diocese Church Times

Cricket Cup for clergy, which

would have celebrated its 70th

year this summer, has been

cancelled. The competition has

seen several bishops but not

David Sheppard, former

Bishop of Liverpool, who

was ordained two

months after making

a century in the 1956

Ashes. “He reckoned it

wouldn’t be fair,” Paul

Handley, the paper’s editor, says.

“Though if he’d known how clergy

can bend the definition of ‘fair’

once in their whites he might not

have been so fastidious.”

In every crisis is an opportunity.

With many of us “staycationing” this

year, Ysenda Maxtone Graham has

picked a good time to publish a

book, British Summer Time Begins,

about the golden years of holidaying

at home. In it, she asked Sir Nicholas

Soames if his parents ever took him

on a foreign holiday. “Certainly not!”

the former MP spluttered. “No one

went abroad except to fight a war.”

of mice and men

Mr Speaker is worried about a

second wave. Not of coronavirus

but of mice. Lindsay Hoyle told

Times Radio that the number of

rodent sightings in parliament had

fallen on his watch — helped by

him bringing in a cat called

Patrick (how kind) — but he fears

the mice have only made a

strategic withdrawal. “They come

back in waves every time a little

bit of building work starts,” says

Hoyle, who spoke in November

about how the Commons mice

have “a little bit of a swagger”

about them. He says Patrick needs

reinforcements but the stumbling

block is the clerk of the Commons.

“I think he’s nervous of cats,”

Hoyle says. Is he man or mouse?

blitz mentality

The explorer Colonel John

Blashford-Snell is ready for the

mandatory imposition of masks on

Friday. While you or I may use a

mere piece of fabric tied over our

faces, the 83-year-old Blashers

has dug out the green canvas

hood in which he spent air

raids as a child, left. “It still

fits!” he declared then,

admiring the concertina air

pump on the front, added:

“Perhaps I can use it as

camouflage when I’m

next on an elephant

expedition.”