For ranchers and farmers of Colorado, the prospect of lab-grown meat is leading to some mixed emotions.
Maarten Vanzoeren is a butcher and owner of Simla Frozen Food Locker LLC in Simla, Colorado.
At Vanzoeren’s shop, he slaughters rabbits, goats, lamb, poultry, wild game, beef, pork and then turns the meat into steaks, sausages, and more. Vanzoeren said the production of lab-grown meat doesn’t intimidate him.
“The approval of lab-grown meat, I’m kind of mute to it. I don’t see a need for it,” Vanzoeren said. “Somebody might argue, well, we don’t have to butcher an animal for it. You’re not going [to go] home and raise your own lab-grown meat cells, so that is not going to happen. You are not going to come in with a cooler full of meat cells and say, ‘Can you make this into a jerky or a summer sausage?’ I find it interesting, but I don’t think it will ever affect me.”