Humans have been raising animals for food for thousands of years. Still, the prospect of growing meat in a lab remains a strange one. Yet food tech entrepreneurs like Josh Tetrick of Eat Just and Moshe Amit of Aleph Farms have founds ways to bioengineer proteins to grow meat.

The question remains, though, can it really be Halal?

Unlike plant-based products from Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, cultured meat is grown from animal cells which is structurally identical to meat. Even under a microscope it may be difficult to distinguish between “real” animal meat and cultured meat.

"From a genetic and nutritional standpoint, it is meat", Tetrick says. You just don't have to slaughter an animal in the process.

Though no animals are harmed, the lack of bloodshed creates questions for religious Muslims and Jews who only eat meats such as beef, chicken, or lamb from animals that are slaughtered according to long-established rules.

The question becomes deeper. Can meat be Halal if it is from permissible animals and no slaughter is involved? Is it really even meat if it is grown in a lab?

Food tech investors and entrepreneurs are betting that this new technology will usher in a new way to satisfy the world’s unsatiable and growing demand for protein.

In 2021, Eat Just raised $267 million to target Muslim consumers by building a facility in Qatar to produce cultured meat en masse. Whilst the startup has consulted with religious experts, it hasn’t officially received approval for the new type of meat.

The question is an important one because if it is deemed that cultured meat grown in a lab is not permissible to Muslims, businesses will miss out on a market of approximately 2 billion people worldwide.

Indonesia's largest Muslim organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama, has already forbidden animal cells grown in bioreactors. Their statement read: "[cultured meats fall] into the category of carcass which is legally unclean and forbidden to be consumed".

In Pakistan, the second-largest Muslim country, scholars led by Islamic law expert Muhammad Taqi Usmani ruled that cultured meat is permissible only if the original cells come from animals slaughtered according to Sharia-compliant processes.

Today’s technology is largely limited to rely on cell lines that originate from live animals.

The issue of permissibility for cultured, lab-grown meat isn’t limited to Muslims either. Jews that observe Kosher diets face similar questions.

To address the concerns of slaughter-free meat, Future Meat Technologies is working on ways to use cell lines that originate from ritually killed cattle, chickens and lamb. Future Meat, which is still awaiting regulatory approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, aims to have its chickens in restaurants by early 2023 and expects to have religious issues resolved by then.

“We already have had several groups of rabbis visit. We are well on our way,” said Yaakov Nahmias the company’s president.

He added that winning Islamic certification won’t be difficult. “It’s going to be both kosher and Halal”.

In Singapore, Muslim experts are taking it slow despite the government being known as the world’s speediest in approving commercialisation of cultured meat.

“Novel foods such as these are new areas in Islamic jurisprudence and require appropriate religious research, analysis and interpretations,” the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (IRCS) said in a statement.