Eating meat kills animals and pollutes the environment. According to a new study by consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, 80 percent of farmland worldwide is used directly or indirectly for meat production — but that only accounts for 11 percent of calorie consumption, according to the authors. Their conclusion: High meat consumption jeopardizes the global food supply.
The solution to the problem lies on the plate: eat little or no meat. However, it seems that the vast majority of the Swiss population is not ready to take this step. Products advertised as meat substitutes are now firmly established in many supermarkets. But most customers prefer real meat.
However, hundreds of companies around the world are working on new alternatives to burgers, cervelats or steaks. Their main target is laboratory meat, which tastes indistinguishable from traditional meat. The starting point is cells from an animal. But these muscle and fat cells grow in the bioreactor, not in chicken, cattle or pig. In this way, real meat is produced, simply without animals – and therefore without slaughter and with significantly less waste of resources.
chicken in the lab
Migros is involved in many companies that want to make this type of in vitro meat marketable. Collaboration with Israeli food technology company Supermeat, which focuses specifically on chicken meat farming, appears to be quite advanced.
A few weeks ago, Supermeat proudly announced that they signed a letter of intent with Migros to promote the production and sale of cultured meat on a “commercial scale”. There is talk of creating an infrastructure for the “wide-scale” distribution and sale of meat.
In the communique, Supermeat CEO Ido Savir is delighted to collaborate with Migros: “Supermeat’s advances in the industry, along with their expertise and reach in the food production and grocery business, will create the conditions for bringing cultured meat in the near future to European consumers.” Compared to “Food Navigator”, an online news portal for the food industry, Savir is specific: “We assume we can sell cultured meat in Switzerland by 2025.”
Chicken in a test tube on the meat counter? And in those two or three years?
Migros does not want to comment on this program compared to SonntagsBlick. Questions about possible production sites and planned quantities also remain unanswered. Instead, the media office refers to an article in the “Migros-Magazine” in mid-July. According to the brief response from the media office, there is all that can be said on the matter at the moment.
Already on the menu in Tel Aviv
First of all, the article tells how delicious the chicken from the laboratory is. Tasting a small sausage, a burrito and a burger at the Supermeat test restaurant in Tel Aviv, the Migros delegation said, “It’s not like meat, it’s meat”. The public, on the other hand, has little knowledge of Migros’ concrete plans.
But research by SonntagsBlick shows that the orange giant is thinking big when it comes to the meat revolution. Migros representatives met with representatives of the Federal Office of Food Safety and Veterinary (FSVO) in early summer 2021 to discuss new food approval requirements.
Migros then asked the authorities to clarify some open questions via e-mail. Correspondence, which SonntagsBlick can review based on the Public Information Act, provides insight into the wholesaler’s lab meat plans. For example, Migros wanted to learn from BLV what is required for the “commercialization” of new food in “all EU countries” and whether cultured meat produced in Switzerland can be exported to the USA. Those responsible also asked about the possibility of “consumer tests” in Switzerland.
A month later, the answers from Bern reached the Limmatplatz in Zurich. Regarding access to the European market, the FSVO noted that the approval in Switzerland does not generally speed up the procedure in the EU. However, export abroad without approval is also possible, provided that US food law regulations are followed.
FSVO ready
Regarding consumer testing, the FSVO has not made a final decision: official approval is always required when new foods are released – even if only for market testing. The only exception is the import of food for private use at home. “It is your responsibility, under self-regulation, to assess whether the tasting falls within the scope of this provision and whether it is a sale to a third party.”
It is not clear what kind of conclusions Migros draws from these answers. “Please understand that we are not commenting on this correspondence,” the media office writes.
In response, the BLV reported that no formal requests for cultivated meat have been received to date. However, the Swiss Regulation on Foodstuffs and Commodities provides a new category of food from cell cultures. More precisely: “A corresponding permission depends on the completeness and quality of the permission file.” In particular, the safety of new food must be proven.
The FSVO doesn’t want to decide whether it’s realistic to sell cultured meat in Switzerland from 2025, but cautions that it should take one to three years to process an approval dossier.