By the end of this century, the world's population will increase to 11 billion people, and a logical question arises: how to feed all these people? Puzzled by this issue, farmers are looking for ways to increase the efficiency of agricultural land use. And scientists and entrepreneurs are experimenting with alternative ways of producing products.
One of these methods is the "cultivation" of meat in the laboratory, the BBC tells. The American company Just already produces chicken and foie gras, and in the future plans to add beef, butter, milk and tuna to its assortment.
Cultivated meat, it is also meat from a test tube is increasingly called the future of the food industry. The development of these technologies will allow to abandon the resource-intensive breeding of cattle and poultry - meat, grown from animal stem cells, to taste and nutritional value is not inferior to the traditional one.
It is this feature that will allow meat from the test tube to win the hearts and stomachs of consumers. Accustomed to such meat, people will be psychologically ready for other food experiments, and this will open huge prospects for developers of alternative products.
For example, on the shelves of shops you can find unusual hybrids - rich in protein and low-fat products, which will combine plant and meat components. Moreover, in the market there may appear some kind of craft producers (similar to brewing companies), producing original author's products in small volumes.
A huge plus of artificial products is that they can be created for a specific person - taking into account his individual needs and with the necessary indicators of nutritional value. And the development of technologies for their production can make these products quite affordable for the mass consumer.
Already, the Dutch company ByFlow offers 3D printers that can "print" food - they are equipped with cartridges filled with special edible pastes of several kinds. The price of this printer is € 3,3 thousand; according to ByFlow representatives, they managed to sell more than 100 such devices.
And the research group The Future Market recently introduced a conceptual "menu of the future" for a Chinese restaurant of the 2042 sample, where, in particular, you can see soup from cultivated shark fins.
In other words, modern technologies can radically change the food market. A key role on it will be played by representatives of new professions - food engineers and food designers.