At a press conference held in London today, two volunteers tasted the world's most expensive burger. The £250,000 'beef burger' is the first to have been grown entirely in a laboratory from cells collected from a cow.

Scientists from Maastricht University, who created the burger, claim their project represents a groundbreaking first step towards balancing the twin problems of increasing meat demand from a growing middle class and shifting consumption patterns across the world, and the devastating effects the intensification of livestock farming is having on the natural environment.  

Dr Mark Post, who led the Maastricht University project, said lab-grown meat could help avert food shortages in the near future, as demand for meat is expected to increase by more than two-thirds by 2050 and current production methods will be unable to keep up.

The Cultured Beef burger is the culmination of five years' work for Dr Post, begun when he was a professor of tissue engineering at the University of Eindhoven. The meat in the burger was grown in a laboratory, from muscle cells taken from a cow's shoulder and then placed in a nutrient solution, where they developed into "small strands of meat". Around 20,000 of the 'strands' were needed to create the 140g burger.  

The burger was made using Dr Post's Cultured Beef, along with salt, egg powder and other standard burger ingredients. In order to give a more 'natural' colour to the meat, which is white when grown in the lab, red beet juice and saffron were added to the mix.

Dr Post and his colleagues are touting Cultured Beef as a sustainable, ethical alternative to meat. They believe commercial production of the lab-grown meat could begin within ten to 20 years, but were unwilling to speculate on the products' eventual price tag on Monday.

The team claims that their lab-grown meat accounts for just 1 percent of the land and 55 percent of the energy use of the farmed equivalent, and that growing meat in a lab emits 96 percent less greenhouse gasses than livestock production. They chose to grown beef because of the meat's particularly large environmental hoofprint.

Dr Post commented ahead of the London press conference, "What we are going to attempt is important because I hope it will show Cultured Beef has the answers to major problems that the world faces. Our burger is made from muscle cells taken from a cow. We haven't altered them in any way. For it to succeed it has to look, feel and hopefully taste like the real thing."

Although the production of lab-grown meat remains very much in its infancy, critics have expressed doubts over the actual commercial viability of the meat or its necessity.

While some critics said that moves towards a vegetarian diet, or one less reliant on meat, would address some of the problems identified by Dr Post and his supporters, the professor said on Monday that such a shift has yet to be observed anywhere in the world.

The NFU said on Monday that it is not convinced of the need for lab-grown meat. The union claimed that livestock production in the UK delivers benefits for the landscape, environment and rural economy. A spokesperson said, "Beef farmers are proud of their farming which delivers great tasting, sustainable food." 

Responding to a question about the potential impact on agrarian economies, should the Cultured meat be commercialised, Dr Post said, "We will always have areas where we need cows. We will always need farmers, so I’m not concerned about the future of agriculture." He reiterated that his motivation for developing the meat lies in the very real prospect of food shortages in the relatively near future.