Meatable hopes its cultivated sausages will satisfy the world’s appetite for meat without harming animals or the planet

Even before I see the sausages, I am greeted by their rich, meaty aroma. Sizzling in a pan of foaming margarine, they look like regular chipolatas being fried up for a Sunday breakfast, their pink-grey exteriors slowly turning a rich caramel brown.

Consisting of 28% pork fat, bulked out with textured pea, chickpea, soy and wheat protein, these mini-bratwursts would happily sit inside a hotdog or next to a plate of mashed potato. But these are no standard bangers.

Cultivated from cells plucked from a fertilised pig egg and grown inside steel fermentation vessels like those used to make beer, these slaughter-free sausages are being touted as the future of sustainable and ethical meat production.