Lab grown meat will be on Irish menus by 2026 “at the latest,” an industry insider has predicted. 

Manufacturers claim that food products cooked up in a lab from animal cells is “real meat” and Mosa Meat Vice President Robert Jones said that it “looks, tastes, smells, behaves in the pan like the beef that you’re used to.”

It is also, he claims, a much cheaper way of putting food on people’s plates than traditional farming.

“We’re not growing entire animals,” he told The Hard Shoulder.

“We’re just isolating down muscle and fat tissues and just growing the parts that you would eat.

“Which is why, at the end of the day, it has the long-term potential to be a much more efficient process.

“A cow is a beautiful animal but it’s somewhat inefficient as a meat producer; for about every 13 calories that you feed a cow, it produces one calorie of meat.”

With humanity’s population predicted to soar to over 10 billion by the end of the century, Mr Roberts described lab grown meat as the best way of “providing an alternative for a growing planet that loves beef”.

He also feels it is only “a matter of time” before Irish consumers will be able to buy it from their local supermarket.

“[There is] at least one application in Britain pending now,” he said,

“It’s already being sold in the United States and we’re going to see more approvals around the world.

“I think you’re going to see it on menus in the UK, in Ireland and in Europe in the next two-and-a-half to three years at the latest.

“Then you’ll see it in grocery stores after that.”

Before Irish consumers could buy lab grown meat, the product would have to be approved by the European Food Safety Authority.

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Main image: Artificial beef grown in a lab. Picture by: Alamy.com