Australia Approves Cultivated Quail for Sale, Becoming the Fourth Country to Allow Lab-Grown Meat

Australia has given final approval for the sale of cultivated meat, clearing Sydney start-up Vow to serve its quail, grown from cells with no slaughter, in restaurants across the country.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) approved the product as safe earlier this year after a multi-year assessment and two rounds of public consultation. On Wednesday the Australia and New Zealand food ministers signed it off, the final hurdle. That makes Australia the fourth country in the world to allow cultivated meat for human consumption, after Singapore, the United States and Israel.

Vow's cultured Japanese quail will be available under its Forged brand at dozens of venues within weeks, including NEL in Sydney and Bottarga in Melbourne. Vow is already on sale in Singapore, where it was approved in April 2024, and launched in Hong Kong six months later.

Founder and CEO George Peppou, a former chef, said:

Australia has always punched above its weight when it comes to food. We're a country of curious, creative, deeply thoughtful chefs and diners. To now be able to offer something completely new, not an imitation, but a new category of meat, is something we're incredibly excited about. While other markets face regulatory uncertainty, Australia is embracing innovation and consumers are ready to try something new and delicious.

Vow isn't thinking small. In May it carried out what it claims is the largest cultured meat harvest in history, 538kg, and it has since produced over 818kg in a single week. Its 20,000-liter cell culture reactor was designed and built in-house by former SpaceX engineers in under 14 weeks.

Sydney chef Mike McEnearney, one of Forged's first ambassadors, will serve it at his restaurant Kitchen by Mike. “This isn't about replacing the meats we know and love. It's about trying something entirely new,” he said.

Meat grown without animals means no factory farms and no slaughterhouses. Oxford researchers have shown that meat and dairy take up 83% of the world's farmland while supplying just 18% of our calories, so anything that breaks that link is welcome.

This is a big week in a fast-moving story. It began when Singapore approved lab-grown chicken in 2020, followed by the first US approval and Israel's cultivated beef. Vow's quail then went on sale in Hong Kong, and earlier this year Europe's first cultivated meat went on sale in the UK as dog treats.

This is just the beginning.