A cultivated chicken filet may be available soon with FDA finding it is safe for humans

There is a letter today in The New York Times addressed to chickens.

“Dear chickens of the world,

You may be dismissed from the dinner table,” starts the letter from UPSIDE Foods founder and CEO Uma Valeti.

“In the future, we might be eating just as much meat as we always have. But a lot fewer animals are going to have to suffer for it. We wanted you, the chickens of the world, to be the first to know. And we hope it brings a smile to your beaks.”

UPSIDE Foods said the letter commemorates a “groundbreaking regulatory milestone.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given the company a “no questions” letter about its cultivated meat.

The FDA said, “The agency evaluated the information submitted by UPSIDE Foods as part of a pre-market consultation for their food made from cultured chicken cells and has no further questions at this time about the firm’s safety conclusion.”

UPSIDE said its first product will be a chicken filet.

Before it can be sold, the FDA said there are several other steps including facility registration, a grant of inspection from USDA-Food Safety and Inspection Service for the harvest and post-harvest portions and the product itself will require a USDA mark of inspection.

UPSIDE Foods said the chicken “is cultivated directly from animal cells. It’s not vegan or vegetarian – it’s delicious meat, made without the need to raise and slaughter billions of chickens.

In fact, at full commercial scale, UPSIDE could use a small amount of animal cells to cultivate the same amount of poultry meat that could come from hundreds of thousands of traditionally farmed birds.”

UPSIDE said cultivated meat production uses less water and land than conventionally-produced meat and, “because it’s made in a controlled environment subject to high standards of testing for safety and quality control, it has the potential to help reduce the risk of harmful bacterial contamination.”

According to UPSIDE, it chose chicken as its first product “because it’s the most commonly eaten meat in the U.S. and is quickly becoming the meat of choice for consumers around the world.

Every year, Americans consume an estimated 8 billion chickens — or roughly 100 pounds per person — a number that has doubled since the 1970s.

This growth in demand has been accompanied by an exponential increase in high-intensity industrial chicken farming resulting in more animal suffering.”

UPSIDE said to make the cultivated meat, animal cells are placed in a vessel called a cultivator and fed a blend of nutrients to multiply and grow. After about three weeks, the meat is harvested and ready to eat.

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