Lion meat burgers, tiger steaks and zebra sushi rolls feature in food-tech startup's pitch

One of Primeval Foods's exotic meat products. (Image credit: @Interestinasfuk/Primeval Foods/Twitter)

A food-tech startup in UK has been pitching lab-grown lion burgers, tiger steaks and zebra sushi rolls to climate -conscious consumers. Primeval Foods wants consumers of plant-based meat alternatives to switch to lab-grown meats in a bid to preserve the planet.

These "cultivated" exotic meat products include lion burgers, tiger steaks and zebra sushi rolls.

Lab-grown meat is produced by cultivating animal cells directly  to produce food from any species without slaughtering animals. It also allows producers to replicate the sensory and nutritional profiles of conventional meat.

Although most companies focus on the most common meat categories in demand -- chicken, beef and pork -- Primeval Foods may be the first of its kind to entice consumers with exotic "cultured" meat products.

Read more: Plant-based meat: The healthy, green kid on the block?

Created by the London-based venture studio Ace Ventures, the company plans to have Michelin-starred restaurants in London sample its dishes, once the products pass regulatory approvals. It also plans to expand on a larger scale, even to local supermarkets.

Speaking to FoodNavigator about where they sourced their meat cells from, Yilmaz Bora, managing partner of Ace Ventures, said, “We are currently working on: the Siberian tiger, leopard, black panther, Bengal tiger, white lion, lion, and zebra. We sourced cells of the big cats from captive animals, and for the zebra, we sourced it from an exotic meat market."

He also said that the purpose of the initiative was to make food that "carnivores will crave".

“To make a notable and long-lasting impact for animals, we need to make foods that carnivores will crave, not vegans and this must be the whole purpose of launching an alternative protein startup," Bora told Vegconomist. “We see this as the third revolution since the discovery of the fire and The Neolithic Revolution."