The Food and Drug Administration has given the go-ahead to a lab-grown chicken product from GOOD Meat, and the company announced that chef José Andrés will serve it in one of his DC restaurants soon. But not so fast — the product has to be cleared by the U.S. Department of Agriculture first. GOOD Meat has been serving its lab-grown chicken in high-end Singapore restaurants since 2020.
This is the second synthetic chicken product cleared by the FDA. The first was from UPSIDE Foods back in November. There may be as many as 99 companies trying to develop cell-cultured meat. While the market for these food products is uncertain, this is a great time to be selling the bioreactors in which the stuff is “grown” and the nutrients that “feed” it.
More:
“A second lab-grown chicken producer got a step closer to hitting the shelves,” Julia Malleck, Quartz
“Lab-grown meat moves closer to American dinner plates,” By Leah Douglas, Reuters
Yum! Brands, parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, is spinning off Yum Brands in China as a separate publicly traded firm. Sales in China’s 4,600 KFCs have been tanking for the last 3 years in the wake of Avian Flu and food safety scares. Adding new menu items, a new mobile app, updated employee uniforms, and celebrity promotions by film biggies Chen Kun and Kē Zhèndōng haven’t helped much.
More:
“The company behind KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell just isolated the most dangerous part of its business,” Ashley Lutz, Business Insider
Update:
“China is no longer a complete nightmare for KFC,” Alison Griswold, Quartz
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KFC’s China division is adding 15 new items to menus at the country’s 4,600 restaurants. Let a thousand chickens bloom! The new grub will be promoted by Chinese celebrities Chen Kun and Kē Zhèndōng. What’s the “K” in “KFC” stand for again, Kaiping?
KFC China is also rolling out a new mobile app and updated employee uniforms. Skeptics say it’s all meant to distract attention from last year’s Avian Flu and food safety scares.
When Christmas comes to Japan, thoughts turn to that jolly old man, Harland Sanders. America’s Kentucky Fried Chicken came to the Land of the Rising Sun in 1970, and homesick expat Yanks soon began gobbling the deep-fried fowl for the holidays. Japanese folks give Yuletide luxury gifts to their sweeties, and many have adopted this exotic Christmas culinary custom, too. Those who can afford it, that is. A KFC Christmas Barrel costs about US$40.
So クリスマス用のケンタッキー (Kurisumasu ni wa kentakkii! “Kentucky for Christmas!”) and to all a good night.
Great cover story in the current Smithsonian magazine:
“How did the chicken achieve such cultural and culinary dominance? It is all the more surprising in light of the belief by many archaeologists that chickens were first domesticated not for eating but for cockfighting. Until the advent of large-scale industrial production in the 20th century, the economic and nutritional contribution of chickens was modest.”
— “How the Chicken Conquered the World,” Jerry Adler and Andrew Lawler, Smithsonian
When Christmas comes to Japan, thoughts turn to that jolly old man, Harland Sanders. Kentucky Fried Chicken came to the Land of the Rising Sun in 1970, and homesick expat Yanks soon began gobbling the deep-fried fowl for the holidays. Japanese folks give Yuletide luxury gifts to their sweeties, and many have adopted this exotic Christmas culinary custom, too. Those who can afford it, that is. A KFC Christmas Barrel costs about US$40.
So クリスマス用のケンタッキー (Kurisumasu ni wa kentakkii! “Kentucky for Christmas!”) and to all a good night.
During the 18-day Egyptian Revolution there was talk of a foreign provocateur in Tahrir Square, an American colonel. Colonel Sanders. Rumor had it that anti-Mubarak demonstrators were being paid off in Kentucky Fried Chicken. Raja Abdulrahim of the Los Angeles Times covered the story: