The reason vegetarians don’t eat meat is that they believe consuming animals is wrong. What happens, though, when the meat no longer comes from a living source, but rather a laboratory? KFC seems to be asking that question with the revelation that they’re looking to create the world’s first laboratory-produced chicken nuggets.

Fresh From The Lab

It seems that there’s nothing science can’t do. Just when you thought you’d heard the craziest development yet, a fast-food restaurant chain announces that it wants to serve 3D-printed chicken nuggets. KFC has revealed that they’re collaborating with 3D Bioprinting Solutions to create food out of chicken cells and plant material. It might sound like a wacky idea, but it could reduce the need for breeding animals for food.

Facing A Challenge

The 3D printing company has primarily been tasked with two objectives here. One, developing a product that tastes and feels like chicken without it being taken straight from the animal. Two, recreating the “signature KFC taste” through ingredients provided by the fast-food giant. The former will be the real challenge, with 3D bioprinting still a slow and tricky process. However, KFC seems confident that their nuggets will be available for testing in a matter of months.

Restaurant Of The Future

This new food product is apparently all part of KFC’s aim to create the restaurant of the future. They hope that serving 3D-printed nuggets will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption due to the lack of farming required. This is the kind of positive change that we could definitely use in the future. However, the question is whether or not people will jump at the chance to eat meat that was grown in a laboratory.

Whether this marks a new chapter for fast-food restaurants depends on how KFC’s nuggets fare when they hit the market. If all goes to plan, though, chicken nuggets as we know them could disappear forever.

After the end of an interesting quarter in smartphone sales, Samsung has retaken its place as the leading smartphone company in the world. While Huawei moved back to second place, Xiaomi overtook Apple for the third spot, and Vivo established itself fifth.

The Switch of the Top Position Was Expected by Smartphone Market Experts

The way Samsung got back to the first place was not much of a surprise to people following the smartphone market. While Samsung captured nearly 23% market share, Huawei now represents around 15% of the share. This is a massive drop of 22% when compared to the situation last year. Experts point out that this can be majorly contributed to the U.S. trade ban, which does not allow American companies to work with Huawei.

Xiaomi managed to ship enough smartphones to take a bit more than 13% market share. This Chinese smartphone company continues to have a strong presence in both China and India, which propelled it to third place, going above the share of Apple for the first time.

Most Smartphone Companies Faced Many Challenges In 2020

In general, Apple had a very good quarter when it comes to everything but the iPhone. While it got just about 11% share, it is still significantly ahead of Vivo, which took about 8.9% of the market share. It could be said that given the nature of the market in 2020, it has been a tough quarter for all these companies. Both manufacturing and sales had to overcome many challenges in China, Europe, and the US. The iPhone 12 launch was postponed to October, and most other companies even launched their products in November.

Even though the results differ drastically from last year, the end of 2020 is actually a big recovery, especially for companies in key markets such as India. There, both Samsung and Xiaomi managed to mark good gains, and that shows in the numbers the companies reported. Reports also show that although so far, the consumer demand for 5G may be small, it will be an important driver for future growth.