From Artistic Vision to Industrial Production
With these words, the victimless meat experiment that Catts and Zurr conducted as an art project is poised to become a common commodity in supermarkets. The firm confirms the artists' predictions that this technique can drastically reduce the energy consumed and the wastes produced by conventional cattle growing and butchering.
When art featured self-expression, the popularization of an artist's innovation would have been condemned as a violation of an artist's rightful domain. But eco artists rarely lay claim to their creative efforts because they are designed to solve real world problems and serve real world interests. I suspect Catts and Zurr are rejoicing.
Memphis Meats CEO Uma Valeti declares, "We plan to do to the meat industry what the car did to the horse and buggy." He then explains, "We love meat. But like most Americans, we don't love the many negative side effects of conventional meat production: environmental degradation, a slew of health risks, and food products that contain antibiotics, fecal matter, pathogens, and other contaminants."
The process utilized by Memphis Meats is identical to that of Catts and Zurr. They isolate cow and pig cells and provide them with oxygen and nutrients so the cells not only remain alive, they develop and multiply inside bioreactor tanks to become muscle, that is then served as meat. The growth process only takes a few weeks.