It's the weekday lunch rush and diners at Kitchen by Mike, a popular restaurant in the Sydney CBD, are among the first in the country to try a curious new cuisine.
Acclaimed chef Mike McEnearney's much-loved sourdough bread is now being served with what's known as "cultured Japanese quail spread".
"The cultured quail is folded through the butter. If you like strong chickeny quail flavours, it's in the texture of butter on bread. It's delicious, it's almost like pâté," McEnearney said.
But what makes it so unique?
Well, the quail meat in the butter did not come from a farm; rather, it was produced in a factory in the inner Sydney suburb of Alexandria, about a 20-minute drive from the restaurant.
Chef Mike McEnearney's popular sourdough bread is now being served with cultured quail compound butter at a restaurant in Sydney. Source: SBS News
"[It's] my first time in 35 years of cooking that I've seen a new category come to market. It's really exciting. It is brand new food," McEnearney said.
And the verdict from diners?
Angelo, a regular customer, described it as "delicious".
"I'd say it's pretty adventurous. It's quite new in the industry, so I'm glad to have tried it," he said.
"I really like the innovative nature of it, and I think I'd be really happy to see it more on menus," another patron, Benjamin Heenan, told SBS News.
Cultured meat: From cells to steak
From hatted restaurants to pubs, around a dozen restaurants across Australia have started serving the cultured quail. About a dozen more will have it on their menu by the end of the month.
The product is the brainchild of Australian start-up Vow, which in June became the first company in the country to receive approval to sell cultured meat.
It follows a more than two-year approval process by the food safety regulator, Food Standards Australia New Zealand.
Ellen Dinsmoor, Vow's chief operating officer, insists the company is not trying to replace meat.
"What we make is very unique in that it's not plant-based, we're not trying to recreate beef and other meats we eat today. We're taking different cells from other animals, growing those and then using them to make new food products," she told SBS News.
Dinsmoor said the quail cells are grown in a bioreactor, which is essentially a large stainless steel tank, similar to those found in a brewery.
"We take actual cells from animals and we grow them in what I think of as a nutrient broth. At the end of the day, you can harvest those cells out," she explained.
Vow's chief operating officer, Ellen Dinsmoor, said the company is not trying to replace regular meat, but is using unique ways to create new products. Source: SBS News
While the product only made its debut in Australia this month, it has been available in Singapore for the past year — the first country globally to approve the sale of cultured meat.
Why grow food in a factory?
Paul Wood, an adjunct professor in biotechnology at Monash University, said: "Well, for some people, it's because they don't want to see animals harmed. For others, it's an environmental thing. They believe that this is going to be a more sustainable way of producing food."
"Some just say it's a new food experience. So there's a range of ways that it's being sort of marketed to people," he said.
But Wood said until the industry scales up significantly, it remains unclear whether it will be more sustainable than farming.
"So you really need to be using totally renewable energy. And even then, if you compare it to growing an animal in a paddock, it's still a hell of a lot more intensive."
He said cost is another challenge, and when it comes to nutrition: "It's unlikely, I think, to be better than a piece of meat."
But others believe the industry has a role to play in addressing future food challenges.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, agricultural production will need to increase by approximately 60 per cent to meet global food demand by 2050.
The animal cells are grown inside a large stainless steel tank in what Vow describes as a "nutrient-dense broth". Credit: Supplied / Vow
"It's widely recognised that we're not going to be able to do that sustainably using existing methods alone," he said.
"We see cellular agriculture and the technologies that sit within it as a way of complementing existing food supply chains … where the technologies offer the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce land use and reduce water use, whilst also building resilience, particularly around things like climate shocks or supply chain disruptions."
The technology is being harnessed to make everything from coffee to palm oil, leather and chocolate.
'Frankenstein meat'
There are calls for better investment in the industry as countries take steps to ban the sale and consumption of cultured food, including Italy, France, and some states in the United States. Concerns over quality and the threat to farmers are among the issues driving the pushback.
The Italian farm lobby has previously labelled cultured meat "Frankenstein meat".
Perkins said misconceptions are feeding "unhelpful narratives" about the industry.
"One thing we hear a lot is references to things like lab-grown meat. Cell ag products aren't produced in labs, even if the original technology was developed by scientists. They're made in food manufacturing facilities that look far more like breweries than they do a science lab," he said.
But the industry has a long way to go.
Vow is one of only three companies globally approved to sell cultured meat. Getting governments, investors, and consumers on board remains a challenge.
