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KFC Tests 3D-Printed Chicken Nuggets In Russia (businessinsider.com) 98

Posted by BeauHD from the restaurants-of-the-future dept.
KFC announced that it will test chicken nuggets made with 3D bioprinting technology in Moscow, Russia, this fall. Business Insider reports: The chicken chain has partnered with 3D Bioprinting Solutions to create a chicken nugget made in a lab with chicken and plant cells using bioprinting. Bioprinting, which uses 3D-printing techniques to combine biological material, is used in medicine to create tissue and even organs. The 3D-printed chicken nuggets will closely mimic the taste and appearance of KFC's original chicken nuggets, according to the press release. KFC expects the production of 3D-printed nuggets to be more environmentally friendly than the production process of its traditional chicken nuggets. The fall release will mark the first debut of a lab-grown chicken nugget at a global fast-food chain like KFC.
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KFC Tests 3D-Printed Chicken Nuggets In Russia More

KFC Tests 3D-Printed Chicken Nuggets In Russia

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  • I predict that nobody will care (Score:5, Funny)

    by lessSockMorePuppet ( 6778792 ) on Thursday July 23, 2020 @06:25PM (#60324233) Homepage

    After a fairly shaky start to the day, Arthur's mind was beginning to reassemble itself from the shell-shocked fragments the previous day had left him with.

    He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.

    The way it functioned was very interesting. When the Drink button was pressed it made an instant but highly detailed examination of the subject's taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subject's metabolism and then sent tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centers of the subject's brain to see what was likely to go down well. However, no one knew quite why it did this because it invariably delivered a cupful of liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.

    We don't seem to mind existing food processing. It's neat, really.

    • This reminds me of that Ad for "Bachelor Chow" at the beginning of Futurama.

      Food for poor people, created as cheaply as possible.

    • Re:I predict that nobody will care (Score:4, Funny)

      by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Thursday July 23, 2020 @07:13PM (#60324373) Journal

      Appetite, like most things is relative.

      Years ago, I was offered a bologna sandwich for breakfast whose ingredients (bread, bologna, mustard) had laid untouched in a gas fridge (no electricity) in a cabin on a ranch for weeks, maybe months... I declined.

      After a long ass day of resetting fence and posts displaced in draws by a recent rainstorm, I ate two of those delicious sandwiches before passing out on a cot with a mattress the thickness of low quality kleenex.

      The old rancher told me the only difference between good and bad food is about 24 hours.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Appetite, like most things is relative.

        Years ago, I was offered a bologna sandwich for breakfast whose ingredients (bread, bologna, mustard) had laid untouched in a gas fridge (no electricity) in a cabin on a ranch for weeks, maybe months... I declined.

        After a long ass day of resetting fence and posts displaced in draws by a recent rainstorm, I ate two of those delicious sandwiches before passing out on a cot with a mattress the thickness of low quality kleenex.

        The old rancher told me the only difference be

    • At last, the dream of science fiction is true. In a 1970s sci-fi story with artificial food would have it growing in vats or manufactured in a facility. A story with a printer that manufactured food would be judged ridiculous. Reality trumps fiction for weirdness once again!

      • A story with a printer that manufactured food would be judged ridiculous.

        Now look up where food in Star Trek came from.

    • assuming kfc equals mac ... i never eat mac since i already feel like there's no meat in it
      and this sounds even less appealing
      but "us chain tests printed chicken on russian guinea pigs" is somewhat entertaining for a title
      https://www.insidehook.com/dai... [insidehook.com]

  • The chicken and chicken byproducts are first whipped into a thick slurry, then pumped out of a tiny nozzle by the 3-D printer. It's hard to imagine anything more appetizing! The justification for this escapes me, though. Weren't the original chicken nuggets processed enough?

    • Its about profit. Faster, cheaper, higher profit. Competition limits the price of chicken nuggets to the consumer, to increase profit you can sell more and/or produce them at a lower cost.

    • Just imagine all the interesting forms you can shape this nuggets into.

    • They're experimenting with fish, too. Here's a video of the process [youtube.com].

    • Re:Yum yum! (Score:5, Informative)

      by iikkakeranen ( 6279982 ) on Thursday July 23, 2020 @10:13PM (#60324801)

      It's cultured cells, not parts of an actual chicken. It needs far less processing because there aren't bones and feathers etc involved - they grow the "slurry" directly in a big vat, analogous to yeast manufacturing. The potential advantages for industrial "food" production are obvious: cost, consistency, less reliance on third parties. Maybe it'll have less insect parts and rat poop than real chicken nuggets, and taste better than tofu.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      KFC expects the production of 3D-printed nuggets to be more environmentally friendly than the production process of its traditional chicken nuggets.

      By all the gods, how nasty is the "traditional" process then? I've made sausage, slaughtered critters, eaten udders and testicles, but some things really are too nasty to think about eating.

      • Breeding animals for food is enormously inefficient compared to just eating the plants ourselves. This process aims to take out the step the (~6 months for a chicken or few years for a cow) energy the animal âoewastesâ living/walking/thinking/farting making the production process more efficient (and so more environmentally friendly).

        Most meat isnâ(TM)t hand reared on a nice farm, itâ(TM)s produced in factories.

  • Just sayin'.
  • to pack that into my colon.

  • I read that as "we use everything but the cluck."

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      I read that as "we use everything but the cluck."

      In other words, we're clucked.

    • They don't put feathers in the nuggets, though. That's what they make the shakes out of.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      My dad grew up on a farm, my mom's father was a butcher. We used to say we ate every part of the pig but the squeal.

      • My dad grew up on a farm, my mom's father was a butcher. We used to say we ate every part of the pig but the squeal.

        Yep. My mom grew up on a farm also. I learned the same expression from her. Obviously I adapted it for the current topic.

    • "Recycled food: It's good for the environment, and ok for you!"

  • This is obviously not lab grown, it's just processing some of the cheapest trimmings.

    More highly processed products might be acceptable if it's at least vegan for some people, but who will want to pay for 3D printed pink slime?

  • Chickens 3D print you!

  • Beyond meat "chicken" as well (Score:5, Interesting)

    by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Thursday July 23, 2020 @07:02PM (#60324343)

    KFC has already started trialling "chicken" developed by Beyond Meat. Apparently it is on offer around Nashville, TN and Charlotte NC

  • If I'm not mistaken, old school nuggets were imagined as a way to fully utilize the last scraps of tissue on a chicken carcass, i.e. mechanically separated chicken. This tier of nuggets are basically meat glop held together by binders and are delicious but unhealthy. No one was slaughtering chickens to make nuggets anymore than they were slaughtering them for wings.

    Then I guess people found out what mechanically separated chicken looks like and got all uppity, but still wanted to order nuggets and not breas

    • Maybe KFC nuggets are actually just small whole strips, but I suspect they are not.

      I have no idea what KFC serves, but you can indeed buy nuggets made with whole (not ground) breast meat. Probably made from the pieces that were not big enough to be strips. The only differences I can see are more surface area (for more breading, I guess), faster cooking, and presumably more kid-friendly (easy to dip and eat without needing a knife and fork).

      By any measure I'm sure they are way better than the injection molded ones.

  • Think of the geometric possibilities! You could print the bbq sauce directly into the chicken in small pockets! Bacon and cheese neatly and reliably fused together inside a half hollow textured breaded coating! Printed chicken nugget crusts for pizzas! Dear god, you could even combine this with facial recognition and image extraction for when people just get a craving to eat their own face! Truly amazing and endless possibilities...
  • Think of chicken parts, you can get all legs, all wings, etc. in the stores,
    but for quick frying, the shape of choice is that of the donut.

    It just gives good contact with the oil, and uniform cooking.
    Ideal shape, really, for nuggets.

    So, look for the chicken-parts available in stores to be supplemented;
    next to drumsticks, and thighs, and wings, there'll be... wheels.

  • I would guess that injection molding would be faster and cheaper.

  • Can't they just use injection molding like everybody else?

  • The worst fast food chain ever. Yep, even worse than MacDonald's.
  • YUM. No, really; it's Yum.

    ... so next comes the 3D Chicken followed by the 3D Egg. Or maybe vice versa. Anyway, LOOK! (slow) Star Trek replicators.

    Followed soon by people. Get Corona? No Problem, just print yourself back when you didn't -- let that old first generation just go by the wayside. Better buy the stock NOW before the first egg is hatched^W printed -- or be left behind.

    Also makes getting to Mars much easier, once you relocate the printer -- but that's what Next Day FedEx is for.
    • Nah. Star Trek food replicators utilize energy-to-matter conversion technlogy; they actually take an atomic-level blueprint for something and directly convert energy into that matter, an atom at a time, in the exact pattern of what you want to eat. Or any other non-living thing you could imagine, including electronics. Know those pads they always have around? No factory makes those, they come out of replicators. They're an offshoot of Transporter technology.
  • I assume this is being piloted in Russia to avoid pesky FDA regulations. Big government overreach! You can't tell me what's fit for human consumption. Bring on the gruel nuggets, tovarisch!

    • Fit for human consumption is the stuff we actually evolved to eat.
      Thr stuff that will not make you sick, even after many decades with the diseases that were conveniently called "age-related".
      (By that logic, low dosage lead poisoning is "age-related" because if you give it to a child from birth to end, the child will only get symptoms after 40+ years.)

  • How do you know it is really a 3D-printed chicken nugget and not just a big, fried booger?

  • Wow... if anybody could have predicted a rebuttal to the “parts is parts” ad campaign... this would not have been it.

  • The 3D-printed chicken nuggets will closely mimic the taste and appearance of KFC's original chicken nuggets

    I am so sorry.

    Wait! Was that your intention? My god.

    • Do you actually *remember* Kentucky Nuggets? They were fucking delicious.

      Of course, I suspect that's because they were cooked in terribly unhealthy transfats, but I don't care, I'd eat them again right now, in a heartbeat. (Maybe my last, because of the transfats, but even so. ;) )

  • ...to avoid going to KFC.
  • The New START [wikipedia.org] treaty forbids developing new weapons of mass destruction!

  • You cannot blend your hand to a pink slime, and still expect it to have the same chemical properties. (Like being movable.)

    So why do people expect destroyed cells thar ran through their self-destruction program and denatured proteins to have the same effect on our digestive flora and hence our bodies?

    No, protein powder is not the same as a steak.
    And sugar is not the same as a pear.
    One makes you sick, the other one doesn't.

    But OK, to be fair, if you go eat fast "food", you're already asking for crossing a fe

  • Gives new meaning to the old adage âoetastes like chicken.â Imagine all the other simulated food they could try to 3D print and try to pass it off as something other than chicken.

  • Sure the extruder nozzle was exceptionally wide, something like half an inch, sploshing a blob of paste with some meat content, forming it into one of four predefined shapes, then the blob would get crumbed, flash-fried and ready for shipping. So, isn't it just like regular 3D printing except very low resolution?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

      LOL, Yes. Ever see what burger king has? Chicken in the shape of a star, moon, etc. If people only knew what that really is.
      Maybe they can 3d print it into interesting shapes like a bird in a cage. A golf ball, etc.

      *What could go wrong*

      Next thing we know Putin will accuse us of trying to kill them. Serving up garbage as food. What could we say? No?

  • Nope, I'm waiting for a health report on eating all this fake meat !
  • First, you grow a real chicken.
    Then, you harvest it's cells.
    Then you 3d-print nuggets made from the cells taken from a chicken?

    First, you grow a potato.
    Then, you mash it up, and extrude into flat ovals.
    Then, you fry those ovals and call it Pringles.

    First, "God" creates the universe, then man.
    Then, man turns around and re-creates God.
    (Many of them!)

    What about just going straight from chicken to plate?
    How is raising chickens, which you have to do anyway, more environmentally unfriendly than the e

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