If you tell kids about lab meat, they don't even blink

However, there are still major challenges to overcome, said Dr Post. For a start, it's hard to find a cost-effective medium in which the cells can proliferate that can replace fetal bovine serum (the liquid portion of blood); while to get meat to really taste like meat you need to include fat cells, he said.  (To make it look like meat he also has to add red beet juice and other ingredients as cultured meat doesn't contain myoglobin, which makes regular meat look red.)

However, consumers are very receptive to the idea of cultured meat, particularly from an animal welfare perspective, although sustainability issues are also driving interest, said Dr Post, who says venture capital firms have expressed an interest in investing in his enterprise.

"Young people totally get it; if you tell kids about it, they don't even blink."​

Another potentially attractive aspect of cultured meat is that production could be optimized to increase levels of certain nutrients, while the fact that it is sterile means the risk of pathogens such as salmonella and E.coli would be reduced.