UK start-up predicts lab-grown sausages on shelves by 2023 after technology ‘breakthrough’ You may or may not know that Winston Churchill foresaw the development of lab-grown meat. “We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing,” he wrote in a 1931 essay, “by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.” Doing so would free up land that had been used for growing crops to feed farm animals, he concluded, allowing parks and gardens to “ cover our pastures and ploughed fields.” Now, nearly 90 years on, a company is hoping to become the first British commercial cultured meat producer after creating its first test lab-made sausages given the codename ‘Churchill’ in homage to the prophetic statesman.