The 'clean' meat is 100 per cent lab grown, meaning that no animals were hatched or slaughtered to make it.

The company says this is less cruel and has a lower environmental impact.

"I don't think this laboratory-produced meat could have immediate health risks," said Michele Carruba, the director of Milan University's obesity research and study centre.

But it is also true that this sort of food can be lacking with respect to characteristics and fundamental substances in the natural products.

"This is the case with iron, which is in the haemoglobin of the mean of the butchered animal, and some vitamins and mineral salts that are perhaps not possible to reproduce in the laboratory," he said.