[Recently] the UK became the first country in Europe to approve the sale of meat grown in a laboratory, giving the green light to a pet food made of cell-cultivated chicken.

Lab-grown meat is presented as a potential solution to the environmental impacts of livestock farming. Cultivated meat products are showing up on shelves and in restaurants in a small but growing number of countries: Singapore, Israel, the US, and now Britain.

[Recently] French start-up Gourmey filed the industry’s first application for market access in the EU. It wants to sell cell-based foie gras, the traditional dish that has faced criticism over animal welfare concerns.

But in Europe it faces an increasingly hostile political climate, with lab-grown meat encountering stiff resistance from a coalition of countries fighting for fresh restrictions at an EU-level and introducing bans within their own borders.

The backlash is being driven by an influential lobbying campaign fronted by a former beef industry executive and funded by livestock interests, a joint investigation by Unearthed and Dutch website Follow The Money has found.

That campaign, which grew out of the successful effort to have lab-grown meat banned in Italy, has capitalised on the farming community’s anger over rising costs and green targets, and made major inroads with EU leaders.

Some have accused the project of fighting “imaginary enemies”, but policy victories suggest it is succeeding in undermining a food product that, in Europe, does not yet exist.

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