GUILT-FREE sausages grown in Oxford labs could appear on the shelves of UK supermarkets on 2023.

Ivy Farm Technologies revealed plans to save170,000 pigs from slaughter by producing more than 12,000 tonnes of pork grown from animal cells.

The Oxford University spin-out has ambitions to put the city on the map in the emerging global industry by producing meat that has been made without GM additives, antibiotics or the need to kill animals.

Ivy Farm believes cultured meat is the answer to the rising food demand as it is 'high quality, slaughter-free and comes with a significantly lower carbon footprint'.

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Co-founder Russ Tucker said: "If you look at the world around us, the way we currently produce and consume food is unsustainable.

"Already nearly half the worldwide harvest is required to feed livestock and that’s only going to go up.

"Cultured meat is the silver bullet – through cutting edge technology we can provide real, high-quality meat while saving the planet."

Ivy Farm’s non-GMO production process uses technology developed at Oxford University, in the same building that scientists developed the Covid-19 vaccine.