KFC, one of the largest fast food chain and franchise operations in the world, is investing in research it hopes will lead to it offering the world’s first lab-grown chicken nuggets in its restaurants. Food scientists have been working on the challenge of ‘growing’ organic meats in a laboratory setting for years now and investors have poured billions into the pursuit.

Lab-grown meats would nullify most concerns about the welfare of animals, birds and fish mass farmed for their flesh. It would also slash the carbon footprint and wider environmental impact of meat farming and industrial scale fishing, which has become an arguably even greater concern in recent years.

Several start-ups have been successful in bringing to market plant-based meat alternatives designed to look, taste and smell like the real thing. Notable examples include Beyond Meat, which last year had a hugely successful IPO and stock market debut, and the still private but heavily funded Impossible Foods.

However, many entrepreneurs and industry analysts are convinced that the real revolution in the meat market will come from economically viable lab-grown meats. There are a number of deep-pocketed start-ups funded by Silicon Valley venture capital working on lab grown meats, from beef to fish. And last month a Bill Gates-funded investment vehicle led a $3.5 million round for Biomilq, a biotech start-up that hopes to synthesise human breast milk.

But KFC’s move is the first high profile direct involvement from a major restaurant group in developing the science behind lab-cultured meat alternatives. The company intends to produce chicken nuggets from animal cells alone using 3D printing technology.

A KFC statement detailing the announcement claimed that its future “biomeat”, describes how a “cleaner final product”, will result from lab-grown nuggets because it will remove additives used in farming. Because lab-grown meat products are still biological flesh tissue, they are not considered vegetarian. However, some vegetarians could decide such products neutralise their ethical concerns and be willing to consume them.

KFC’s attempts to produce lab-grown chicken nuggets has seen it partner with biotech laboratory 3D Bioprinting Solutions, which was founded by Invitro, Russia’s largest private medical company. In 2018 the company’s 3D printers were used to print human cartilage tissues on the International Space Station.

The two companies hope a product will be ready to autumn and will be as “close as possible” to standard, farmed, chicken nuggets.

Using 3D printing to create meat products has been attempted for over a decade now but has had little commercial success because the process is time consuming and expensive. A 3D printer is fed the raw material of the end product and creates it layer by layer. KFC will take chicken stem cells through a biopsy process and let cells multiply into clusters. Once cell numbers are sufficient they will be injected into a bio-cartridge with plant-based ingredients designed to bring the texture and taste of nuggets to close to the real thing. Instead of ‘ink’, the 3D printers use live cells, laid down layer after layer.