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A few attendees, according to Upside Foods Chief Operating Officer Amy Chen, confessed they were nervous to try the lab-grown chicken, which is genetically identical to regular chicken but grown in a bioreactor.

In the same way animal cells can be cultivated in a bioreactor and harvested to produce meat cell products – so cells extracted from coffee plants could be similarly grown, then fermented and roasted to produce a brew.

American politicians aren’t alone in their trepidation around lab-grown meat, which is produced by culturing animal cells in a bioreactor, where they multiply and differentiate into muscle tissue, and which is then harvested and processed to create an alternative to conventional meat production.

For instance, as one lamb and beef producer in the United Kingdom told researchers as part of a recent survey they thought “marketing their produce as ‘the real stuff’ might give them a competitive edge compared to protein produced in a bioreactor.”

According to Nature, the products begin with a small sample of animal cells, typically muscle cells, which are cultured in a controlled environment like a bioreactor.