Will lab-grown foie gras satisfy chefs and gourmets? Paris-based start-up is banking on its cultured fatty duck liver
- Gourmey has raised US$10 million from European and US investors to help perfect its recipe for creating fattened duck liver in a laboratory
- ‘In terms of taste and texture, we’re 90 per cent there,’ said Gourmey co-founder Victor Sayous, a doctoral student in molecular biology
It’s the quintessential French delicacy, but increasingly targeted by animal welfare activists: so can foie gras grown from duck cells find a place at the gourmet’s table?
That’s the goal for Gourmey, a Paris-based venture that raised US$10 million from European and US investors this month to perfect its recipe for making fattened duck liver in a lab.
“There’s a very strong need for an alternative to regular foie gras, a controversial product that needs to reinvent itself,” said Nicolas Morin-Forest, one of Gourmey’s three founders. “We want to show that cultured meat is not limited to burgers but can also be used for gastronomic products.”
Duck livers, a speciality of southwest France in particular, are prized either on their own – star chef Alain Ducasse has served it seared with braised pears – or cooked as a velvety foie gras paté.
It is obtained by force-feeding ducks with a tube stuck down their throats, a practice denounced by critics as unnecessarily cruel and distressing for the animals. California has outlawed foie gras sales for years and New York plans to do so next year.