McDonald’s is quietly testing lab-grown McNuggets in San Francisco, Austin, and Portland with no special menu labeling. Early data shows 87% of taste testers couldn’t tell the difference, while cultivated chicken produces 92% fewer emissions and uses 95% less land than conventional poultry.
The Rollout Nobody Expected
San Francisco, Austin, and Portland. Those are the three cities where you can currently order a six-piece McNugget box that contains cultivated chicken. This is meat grown from real animal cells in a bioreactor rather than raised on a farm. McDonald’s hasn’t taken out billboards or run Super Bowl ads. The rollout has been intentionally understated, almost stealth.
The cities weren’t random picks. All three skew tech-forward with established appetites for alternative proteins. Think Impossible Burgers at corner shops and oat milk as the default. McDonald’s selected markets where curiosity would outpace skepticism, giving the pilot its best shot at clean data.
What’s genuinely surprising is the partnership itself. McDonald’s teamed with a leading cultivated meat producer to engineer nuggets that match the traditional version in taste and texture, nutritional profile, and price point. No special labeling screams “lab-grown” from the menu board. Customers who want to know can ask or check the app, but the default experience is designed to feel completely ordinary. That’s the point.
Why This Changes Everything
The business case goes deeper than novelty. McDonald’s has weathered brutal supply chain disruptions in recent years. Avian flu outbreaks decimated poultry supplies, and climate volatility made forecasting costs a nightmare. Cultivated meat sidesteps all of that. No flocks to vaccinate, no feed crops to irrigate, no seasonal price swings.
Cultivated chicken produces an estimated 92% fewer greenhouse gas emissions and uses 95% less land than conventional poultry farming. For a company serving billions of meals annually, even a partial menu shift could meaningfully dent its carbon footprint and accelerate progress toward 2030 sustainability targets.
Then there’s the cost trajectory. Right now, McDonald’s is likely absorbing a premium to keep prices flat during the pilot. But industry projections suggest price parity with conventional chicken by 2027 at current production scaling rates. If that timeline holds, lab-grown nuggets wouldn’t just be the sustainable choice. They’d be the cheaper one.
