Lab-grown meat: the new agricultural revolution

Vegan alternatives are taking off, but the future of food technology lies in lab-grown meat – cultivating steaks and burgers from animal cells, says Alex Rankine. This is a market full of bold visions and ambitious promises.

Impossible burgers
Impossible Foods is reportedly set to float soon.
(Image credit: © ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)

In 1931 Winston Churchill was asked by The Strand Magazine to imagine the world 50 years hence. “We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately,” he wrote. Churchill might have got his timing wrong, but a future where the meat on our plates has been cultured rather than butchered is finally coming into view.

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Markets editor

Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019. 

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere. 

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful. 

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.