The world’s first test-tube burger was unveiled at a tasting session in London on Monday afternoon. Prof. Mark Post of Maastricht University in the Netherlands, who has been working on the hamburger project since 2008, revealed that Google co-founder Sergey Brin was the mystery backer of the costly experiment.
The creators put the cost of making their burger at around £250,000.
The burger, cooked by frying in a pan by British chef Richard McGowan, was tasted by Josh Schonwald, a Chicago-based author who has written extensively on the future of food, and Austrian food researcher Hanni Rützler.
The hamburger project hopes to help solve the global food crisis caused by the steep rise in population and also combats climate change.
“There are basically three things that can happen... One, that we all become vegetarian. I don’t think that’s really likely. The second: we ignore the issues, that leads to continued environmental harm. The third: that we do something new,” said Mr Brin, who stepped in after funding from the Dutch government ran out.
Prof. Post said his team was already working on the lack of fat, and will be able to add fat to the test-tube burger in a few months. It will be able to make a test-tube burger indistinguishable from the normal one.