Modern meat production is both expensive and very stressful for the environment and especially the animals. This is because consumers want the cheapest possible food, thereby pushing the farmers to constantly improve this process. Therefore, researchers are developing artificial meat in laboratories.

clamorous animal rights group PETA announced it would award $1 million to the first person to come up with a way to make commercially viable in vitro meat by 2012. The fake meat would have to be indistinguishable from the real deal, according to competition rules, and it would have to be cheap enough to succeed in the marketplace.

The technology to produce in vitro meat is almost in place, says Mironov, but "there are bottlenecks" in the process — namely scale and cost. Given the current technology, it would cost $1 million to turn out a 250g piece of beef. The problem boils down to producing a cell-culture medium in large enough quantities at a low enough price

The group concluded that it will be possible to produce in vitro meat in large quantities in the future, but not without funding to continue research.

He has launched two new projects to cultivate fat tissue and increase the amount of myoglobin in meat. Myoglobin is by far the biggest iron carrier in muscle, which Post says is an important component of the taste

If Post manages to produce a hamburger that looks and tastes like the real thing, then the project’s US backer may not be the only person keen to fund it through to our supermarket shelves.

our research shows that cultured meat could be part of the solution to feeding the world's growing population and at the same time cutting emissions and saving both energy and water.

a much more efficient and environmentally friendly way of putting meat on the table

These are made from animal-friendly artificial meat grown from stem cells: packed with Omega 3 and vitamins, they "crackle in your mouth". Yum.

The truth, though, is that artificial steak is still a way off. Pizza toppings are closer. The star of the Dutch research into in-vitro meat, Dr Mark Post, promised that the first artificial hamburger, made from 10bn lab-grown cells, would be ready for "flame-grilling by Heston Blumenthal" by the end of 2012.