Food technology company Ochakov Food Ingredients Plant (OKPI) announced this month that it had successfully produced a cell-based “meatloaf”—the first cultured meat product to be made by a Russian company. By obtaining a small cell sample from a cow using local anesthesia, OKPI was able to grow a 40-gram (1.4-ounce) sample of real meat in a laboratory setting for the cost of 900,000 rubles ($14,027). “In vitro meat, also known as cultivated meat, is a very promising direction in the meat industry,” project curator Nikolai Shimanovsky, MD said. “From our point of view, laboratory meat production has the most significant ethical significance for modern society, since we can refuse the slaughter of living creatures to obtain meat [for] food.” OKPI estimates that its products will be available to the consumer by 2023 and that the price of cell-based meat will drop to 800 rubles per kilogram (or approximately $5.50 per pound).

In addition to OKPI, nearly 30 companies around the world are working to create new ways to cultivate meat without slaughtering animals, including United States’ JUST and Memphis Meats, The Netherlands’ Mosa Meat, Japan’s Integriculture, and Israel’s SuperMeat, Meat the Future, and Future Meat Technologies.