Lab-based meat: the latest

Eating less meat is good advice for the health of people and the planet.  How to do that?  The makers of cell-based meat substitutes say they are the solution to this problem.  But are they?  They aren’t on the market yet, except in Singapore, so the jury is still out.

Public interest

• A taste for lab-grown meat: In an online poll, 19 percent of American adults responded “Yes, I am eager to try” cell-cultured meat when it becomes available, while 78 percent of meat eaters said they would prefer “real meat” in the long run. (Piplsay)

The rationale

• The film: Meat Me Halfway is a just-released documentary from the Reducitarian perspective, which argues that any reduction in meat intake is a help, any way it happens.  One way is to substitute cell-based meat.  Take a look.  I found the film interesting and compelling, and not just because I’m one of the talking heads in it.

The forthcoming products

• Bacon:  Sales of Vegan Bacon Are On the Rise as More Brands Hit the Market.  Plant-based producers are attracting notable funding for a market not yet taken over by Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat.
• Milk: Tech fantasy or a liquid goldmine? BioMilk goes public:  Visitors to BioMilk’s website are asked a simple question: ‘What is milk?’ a question that – until relatively recently – had a pretty obvious answer: the white stuff lactating mammals produce. Today, however, there’s plant-based milk; there are products containing selected components of mammalian milk produced via microbes in fermentation tanks; and now the final frontier: cell-cultured milk…. Read more
• Chicken: Memphis Meats Re-Brands as UPSIDE Foods, Announces Cultured Chicken as its First Product.  Press release.
• Caviar: the mass-market health food star of the future? A British company is developing the world’s first lab-grown ‘compassionate’ caviar to allow more people to experience the delicacy’s unique taste and nutritional benefits…. Read more
• Foie Gras: Gourmey, a start-up based in Paris, received an additional $10 million in seed funding this week. The company hopes to find a market in the United States amid growing concerns about animal cruelty.

The business (follow the money)

• Cultivated meat to reach ‘price parity with conventional meat by 2030’ but will it win the green argument?  No cell-based meat product has yet to apply for a Novel Foods Application in Europe. But supporters of this nascent but quickly growing sector are bullish on its prospects… Read
• ‘World’s biggest’ piece of cell-based whole cut analogue developed: ‘Meatballs, burgers and nuggets have already been done’:  Spanish start-up Novameat has developed what it claims to be the biggest cell-based meat prototype in the world. FoodNavigator catches up with founder and CEO Giuseppe Scionti to talk R&D, investment, and collaborating with Michelin-starred Disfrutar… Read
• Cultured meat future: Why government buy-in is crucial for sector to hit production cost parity by 2030:  Government buy-in will be crucial for cultured meat firms looking to hit cost parity for their products by 2030, with experts claiming that it will be an uphill battle go head-to-head with traditional meat products in terms of price by the end of this decade…. Read more
• BRF, Cargill invest in Israeli cultured meat ventureAleph Farms secured more than $105 million series B funding for large scale global commercialization of cultivated beef steaks. .Read more  
• Do Africans have an appetite for cultivated meat? In South Africa, a country with strong traditions of conventional meat production and consumption, which population segment will be the first to embrace cultivated meat? … Read more
• Africa’s first cultivated meat company targets food security, land use, and subsistence farmers’ livelihoods South Africa’s Mzansi Meat Co. is on a mission to improve food security, all while bringing subsistence farmers’ into the formal economy, through its production of cultivated local delicacies. … Read more