Meat grown from animal cells? Here's what it is and how it's made

The U.S. government is allowing the sale of chicken made from animal cells. Livestock doesn’t need to be raised and killed to produce this new type of meat

The U.S. government is allowing the sale of chicken made from animal cells.

California companies Upside Foods and Good Meat were granted permission on Wednesday to sell their products by the Agriculture Department.

Livestock doesn’t need to be raised and killed to produce this new type of meat, which proponents say is better for the animals and for the environment because land does not need to be cleared for grazing or growing feed.

Currently, the U.S. uses over 1 billion acres of land for agriculture, or just over half of total land -- the majority of which is used for grazing cattle.

It's meat grown from the cells of animals in steel tanks. Though it's known in the industry as cultivated meat, it's sometimes called cultured meat, lab-grown meat or cell-based meat. There are more than 150 companies around the world trying to develop these food products. They're working on a variety of meats: chicken, beef, pork and lamb.

Also Read | Indian start-ups to tap potential of lab-grown meat 

At this point, you can’t buy these new meats at the grocery store — they will be initially rolled out at restaurants. Consumers can expect cultivated meat to be sold at a growing number of restaurants and small retailers within the next two to five years and on supermarket shelves within seven to 10 years, said Sebastian Bohn, a project manager specializing in cell-based food for CRB, a Missouri firm that designs and builds facilities for pharmaceutical, biotech and food companies.