The prospect of cartridges filled with liquefied offal and mince may be pretty stomach-churning but Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) isn’t ruling out the technology as having a place on your plate in the future.
The national red meat group told a conference at Monash University that 3D-food printers would soon be as common in restaurants as coffee machines and microwaves, The Australian reported.
“We are not saying this technology will replace all sausages and steaks but that on some occasions, 3D printed meat will be available,” MLA Tomorrow food manager Michael Lee told the conference.
A small 3D-food printer made by a company in the Netherlands was on show at the event, producing what The Australian called “delicate flower-shaped morsels of reconstituted beef” that were “quickly transformed by MLA chef Sam Burke into gourmet plates of canapes and restaurant meals”.
MLA is keen on 3D meat because although Aussie steaks can be exported overseas for top dollar, mince produced much lower returns for farmers. But using meat byproducts to produce “real” meat via a printer could increase farmers’ incomes. The group is a non-profit that’s owned by cattle, sheep and goat producers.
In 2013-24, the latest figures available from the MLA, Aussies spent more than $1.9 billion on lamb and mutton and $6.3 billion on beef.
Experts in the US agree that printed meat is the future.
Keith Belk, a professor at Colorado University, told Global Meat News that printed meat could one day be a competitor for traditional meat products, as consumers gained the ability to create their own ‘meat’.
But he acknowledged that the price needed to come down and perception of the food needed to improve, likening the idea of 3D meat to consumers’ worries about genetically modified crops.