What is this product called?

Cultivated meat is produced by growing real animal cells inside steel bioreactor tanks, resulting in genuine meat tissue without raising or slaughtering an animal. Singapore approved its sale in 2020 and the United States followed in 2023, marking a significant shift because the product is biologically real meat, not a plant-based imitation, and supporters hope it can eventually reduce the land, water, and greenhouse gas emissions tied to traditional livestock farming.

Processed meat refers to meat from real animals that has been preserved or flavored through methods like curing or smoking, an entirely different category involving conventional animal agriculture. Freeze-dried meat is simply meat with moisture removed for preservation, again unrelated to lab-based cell growth.

Because cultivated meat is grown from a small starting sample of animal cells, in theory a single biopsy could provide the genetic starting material to produce meat indefinitely without ever needing to slaughter that animal or its offspring.