Japan Researchers Produce World’s First Cultivated Cubed Steak

While most of the cultivated meat industry is producing ground meats, Shoji Takeuchi,  a University of Tokyo Professor, stated in a recent interview with Japan times that what his team "are trying to create, on the other hand, is a beefsteak, a chunk of beef, where muscle fibers are neatly aligned in parallel position. They can twitch like real muscles when stimulated by electricity.” Takeuchi first succeeded in creating a lab-grown steak in 2019.

While the technology is still being advanced for the scalability of lab-grown meat, the development of whole-cuts of meat is still the ideal target. 3D Bio-Tissues, a cultivated meat company based in the UK, has also had success in developing a steak made from pork cells.

Although Singapore is currently the only country to have approved lab-grown meat for sale and consumption, the cultivated meat sector has raised an astounding $2 billion in investments globally, according to the Good Food Institute. In Japan specifically, Nissin Foods Group began supporting Takeuchi’s research in 2017.

While other countries are still waiting on regulatory approval, Upside Foods lab-grown chicken is one stop closer with the U.S. granting GRAS status to its product.