At a lab in Tokyo, a machine that looks nothing like a chicken might just be the future of poultry.

Cultured meat is already a proven technology, but the biggest problem isn’t growing cells — it’s keeping them alive. Most lab-grown meats die on the vine, so to speak. And this is because they lack what nature provides effortlessly: a way to circulate nutrients deep into tissue. Cells suffocate, tissue turns necrotic, and what could have been steak ends up more like paste. But now, researchers in Japan may have cracked the code.

By using a bioreactor that mimics a living circulatory system, scientists have cultivated whole-cut chicken muscle, complete with texture, alignment, and contractile function. Their method, described this week in Trends in Biotechnology, marks a major step forward in making structured cultured meat scalable, edible — and even delicious.

This isn’t lab-grown meat as you know it

Lab-grown meat, also known as cultured or cultivated meat, is produced by growing animal cells in a controlled environment — no slaughter required. The idea has captured attention for its promise to reduce the environmental toll of livestock farming and offer a more ethical alternative to traditional meat.

Since the first lab-grown burger was unveiled in 2013, the field has grown rapidly, with dozens of startups racing to make meat that looks, cooks, and tastes like the real thing. Yet, despite progress, creating thick, structured cuts — like chicken breast or steak — has remained a stubborn challenge. Most cultured meats resemble ground products because scientists have struggled to replicate one key feature of living tissue: blood vessels.

“Our study presents a scalable, top-down strategy for producing whole-cut cultured meat using a perfusable hollow fiber bioreactor,” says senior author Shoji Takeuchi of The University of Tokyo. “This system enables cell distribution, alignment, contractility, and improved food-related properties. It offers a practical alternative to vascular-based methods and may impact not only food production but also regenerative medicine, drug testing, and biohybrid robotics.”

Instead of growing isolated clumps of muscle cells, Takeuchi’s team has managed to grow over 10 grams of structured, whole-cut chicken muscle. The key is something they call a custom-designed Hollow Fiber Bioreactor (HFB) — a machine that acts like a circulatory system, pumping oxygen and nutrients through a scaffold of over a thousand precisely arranged fibers.

“We’re using semipermeable hollow fibers, which mimic blood vessels in their ability to deliver nutrients to the tissues,” Takeuchi says. “These fibers are already commonly used in household water filters and dialysis machines for patients with kidney disease. It’s exciting to discover that these tiny fibers can also effectively help create artificial tissues and, possibly, whole organs in the future.”

Real meat, cultured

In essence, the chicken muscle produced using the HFB doesn’t just look like meat — it acts like it too.

The tissues showed contractile movement when electrically stimulated, an indication of mature muscle formation. They also seem to taste good, passing texture and flavor benchmarks with flying colors. In side-by-side comparisons, researchers measured the tissue’s mechanical properties and analyzed its free amino acid profile — markers tied to meatiness and umami. All of it came out similar to real meat.

Still, challenges remain. As tissue volumes increase, delivering enough oxygen becomes trickier. Internal pressure has to be just right. Too low, and cells suffocate. Too high, and you risk forming bubbles or damaging the structure. Cost is also a challenge.

The first lab-grown burger, unveiled in 2013, cost over $300,000 to produce. That price tag made it more of a futuristic demonstration than a viable food product. But in the years since, technological advances, better bioreactor designs, and more efficient cell lines have driven prices down dramatically.

Today, some startups claim they can produce cultured chicken for under $10 per serving, and industry analysts believe costs could continue to fall as production scales up. It’s still not competitive, but it’s not far off. With further innovation and infrastructure, cultured meat may soon become price-competitive with conventional meat — especially when factoring in the hidden environmental and ethical costs of industrial animal farming.

For now, the team is exploring ways to improve the quality and scalability of their lab-grown chicken. They want to include edible hollow fibers that wouldn’t need to be removed post-growth, and artificial blood substitutes to boost oxygen delivery.

Lab-grown chicken is probably coming towards a restaurant or fast food near you soon. So, would you eat it?

Journal Reference: Trends in Biotechnology, Nie et al. “Scalable tissue biofabrication via perfusable hollow fiber arrays for cultured meat applications” http://cell.com/trends/biotechnology/fulltext/S0167-7799(25)00085-X