Grant backs lab-grown kangaroo meat

Skippy burgers and steaks could one day be on the menu with a $25,000 grant to a Western Sydney laboratory food start-up.

Following in the footsteps of pioneers overseas VOW foods has used stem cells from kangaroo to cell-culture meat in a laboratory.

The grant comes from a NSW Treasury scheme to help companies create a minimum viable product.

NSW minister for jobs, Stuart Ayres said: “Western Sydney is the perfect base for Australia’s first cultivated-meat start-up to take forward a global scale opportunity to generate a new food industry.

“The potential to develop a world-class laboratory to manufacture high quality cultivated meat exports is massive.”

VOW has previously produced lab-grown pork, but its kangaroo venture is the first in the world to culture meat from a non-domestic animal.

According to VOW: “Our vision is to leapfrog traditional agriculture completely.

“VOW is at the juncture of using science and technology to create nutritious and delicious food without consuming further resources.”

While others are chasing the dream of lab-meat, there is as yet no commercial lab meat on the market globally.

Picture: VOW

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