I tasted Europe's first lab-grown sausage - and I'd challenge the top ... trends now

It may seem like a concept from freaky sci-fi novels depicting a dystopian future. 

But lab-grown food really exists – and governments around the world are gradually  approving it for public consumption. 

One of the leading developers is Meatable, which has hosted tastings of its first ever product, a 'cultivated' pork sausage. 

The Dutch firm can turn a pig cell into a banger in just four days – 60 times faster than rearing a pig for pork on a traditional farm. 

MailOnline travelled to the company's HQ in Leiden to see lab-grown sausages being made in its labs, and see how the final product compares with the real deal. 

Meatable CEO Krijn de Nood wants lab-grown meat to offer an alternative to meat from slaughtered cattle, rather than replace it entirely, to cut greenhouse gases and help save the planet. 

'It's literally in our DNA to eat meat so I don't see that changing,' he told MailOnline at the company's offices. 

'However there's more and more downsides to how meat is being produced.

'70 billion animals are being slaughtered every year for our food and I think technology can play a big role.' 

Meatable's lab-grown sausage is a mini-bratwurst containing 28 per cent cultivated meat, combined with typical filler ingredients – flour, wheat protein, flavorings and water, which helps it sizzle in the pan. 

For a taste comparison, Meatable presented me with a vegan sausage with all the ingredients of the pork version apart from the lab-grown pork. 

As someone who eats plant-based 'meat' quite often, this vegan version tasted very familiar – starchy and spongey with not too much flavour. 

But as soon as I chomped down on the lab-grown version I could instantly tell a huge difference. 

There's was a distinctive piggy flavour – smokey with a touch of farmyard, but with no chemical tang of laboratory as I'd feared. 

Although the texture was more fibrous than bratwurst I'm used to, Meatable's offering felt like a natural, normal eating experience – and I don't think foodies or top chefs could tell there was no slaughtered pig involved. 

I would happily serve up full-sized versions with onions and a bun at a family BBQ, or guzzle one down on a rainy evening outside a football stadium.

I realised quickly that what's revolutionary about this sausage is not how it tastes but simply the tale of how it came into existence. 

As Krijn, the founder of Meatable, told MailOnline: 'It's just a sausage'. 

'It's simply a nice sausage that tastes well that I would put next to my stew or on a hot dog bun,' he said. 

'But there was no barn, no stable, no livestock transport or no abattoir involved in the making of this sausage.' 

This first iteration of Meatable's product only has lab-grown pork fat – not muscle – because pork fat is where most of the flavour comes from. 

However, the final product will hopefully have both lab-grown fat and lab-grown muscle, Krijn added. 

Meatable also gives me a tour around its top secret laboratory,

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