Vegan campaigners savour test tube burger breakthrough People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the charity which campaigns against the meat and fur industry, praised the development of the 'Frankenburger' as a step forward for animal rights. But it said the burger did not meet the terms of a competition launched four years ago which offered a $1m (£630,000) prize to the first team to sell laboratory-grown meat in commercial quantities. Prof Mark Post, of Maastricht University in the Netherlands, yesterday announced the world's first test tube hamburger would be served up in October. Heston Blumenthal, the experimental chef, will cook the patty grown in a lab from a cow's stem cells. Each portion will cost £220,000, but Prof Post hopes if the burger is a success he can develop the technology on an industrial scale. "This is meat produced without the cruelty, carbon footprint or waste of resources," said Alistair Currie, a spokesman for the vegan campaign group. It's a hugely beneficial development for animals. We welcome this development, which shows this is a viable idea. He added the charity had no ethical objections to the fact that the test-tube patty will technically be a meat product. He said: "Peta has no objection to the eating of meat. Peta objects to the killing of animals and their exploitation. I personally don't fancy eating this, but if other people do that's fine. In 2008 Peta's US arm launched a competition with a £630,000 bounty for the first team to develop and sell large quantities of chicken grown in a lab by July 2012. The animal was chosen because it is reared and slaughtered in the largest quantities. The rules said the 'chicken-meat product' must have a "taste and texture indistinguishable from real chicken flesh to non-meat-eaters and meat-eaters alike." And to prove it was a commercially viable product, the makers had to sell at least 2,000lbs (907kg) across ten US states over three months at the same price as real chicken. At the time the project sounded like science fiction. But Mr Currie said: "The pace of development has pleasantly surprised all of us. People thought that was a hugely ambitious target. It's now looking that someone will produce a beef product by the end of the year.