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Today’s meat industry is one of the largest contributors to global warming. Its business model isn’t sustainable in an ever-growing world, and so we need alternative and sustainable ways to “meat” demand for meat products. Thankfully, science has prevailed yet again and come up with an answer. Enter the realm of lab-grown meat—a scientific breakthrough in cellular agriculture.
Defining Cellular Agriculture
Cellular agriculture is a field of science and technology that aims to produce agricultural products, such as meat, without the need for traditional farming methods. It involves culturing animal cells in a lab setting and growing them into tissues that can be used as food. By culturing animal cells in a lab, this technology grows tissues for consumption, dubbed lab-grown, cultured, or synthetic meat. Lab-grown meat, also known as cultured meat or synthetic meat, is a specific application that focuses on creating meat products from cell cultures. It involves isolating animal cells and providing them with the necessary nutrients and growth factors to multiply and form muscle tissue. The goal is to provide a sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional livestock farming, addressing concerns related to animal welfare, resource consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions.
Industrializing Meats & Seafood Summit
As the Industrializing Meats & Seafood Summit approaches, we spotlight the pioneers of cellular agriculture. These pioneers are at the forefront of cellular agriculture, employing cutting-edge scientific techniques to cultivate real meat from animal cells in controlled lab environments. Their groundbreaking work has the potential to address the challenges associated with conventional livestock farming and pave the way for a more sustainable and humane future of meat consumption.
Without further ado, here are some of the leading lab-grown meat companies in 2023:
Based in California, Mission Barns produces lab-grown meat using a proprietary process in a controlled environment. The company has expanded its pilot production facility and has partnerships with food companies and retailers, including Silva Sausage.
This Californian startup uses microbes to convert recycled CO2 from factories into meat alternatives, a process that reduces environmental impact by not releasing new CO2 into the atmosphere. Air Protein focuses on sustainability and invests heavily in research and development.
A cell-based seafood startup, BlueNalu is working on large-scale food production via cellular agriculture. They have initiated with research and development and small-scale pilot testing, and are planning a 150,000-square-foot food production facility.
A leading player in the cultured meat industry, Meatable is developing sustainable and ethical meat alternatives. They have a significant agreement with the Dutch government for pre-approval tastings of cultivated meat and seafood in the Netherlands.
New Form Foods specializes in cultivated meat products using cellular agriculture. Their focus is on sustainable, ethical meat alternatives that mimic the taste and texture of traditional meat, while being more environmentally friendly. They utilize controlled environments to culture animal cells for their meat products.
A soybean-based meat cultured producer, Daiz is focused on developing sustainable and affordable alternatives. Their "miracle meat", made with the Ochiai Germination Method, offers a nutritious and tasty alternative to traditional meat production.
Food tech Vow is a prominent cultivated meat company founded in Australia, with Tim Noakesmith and George Peppou at the helm. They are dedicated to transforming the way meat is produced by harnessing cellular agriculture and fermentation techniques. Vow's focus extends beyond traditional meats, as they aim to develop cultured alternatives for unique and exotic varieties such as kangaroo, alpaca, and even lion. By pushing the boundaries of cultivated meat, Vow strives to offer sustainable and ethical choices while diversifying the protein options available to consumers.
Mewery is the first European cell-based food tech startup developing novel and fortified cultivated pork on a microalgae base. It stands out by developing fortified cultivated pork with microalgae, a game-changer for scalability and cost. Their unique technology aims to break down barriers to scaling and accelerating the cultivated meat industry.
Founded in 2020 by the renowned tissue biologist, Dr. Ali Khademhosseini, Omeat is headquartered in Los Angeles. Omeat stands out with a regenerative technique harnessing cow plasma, ensuring affordability meets innovation. It utilizes the inherent regenerative properties found in cows' plasma to stimulate cell growth. This proprietary technique enables them to produce delicious and affordable cultivated meat without the need for animal sacrifice.
Ever After Foods, formerly known as Plurinova, is an Israeli food tech company at the forefront of innovation. Ever After Foods redefines scalability with their patented bioreactor technology, making cultivated meat a mainstream choice
Upside Foods, formerly known as Memphis Meats, is a leading cultivated meat company co-founded by Uma Valeti, Nicholas Genovese, and Will Clem. The core of UPSIDE Foods' approach involves utilizing biotechnology to guide stem cells towards differentiating into muscle tissue, which forms the basis for various meat products. These stem cells are cultivated and manufactured within specialized bioreactors, providing a controlled and environmentally friendly environment for meat production.
Finless Foods is dedicated to fostering a thriving ocean in the future. Founded by Michael Selden and Brian Wyrwas, the company's mission is to craft delectable, nutritious, and easily attainable seafood substitutes using plant-based and cell-cultured methods. With a wide array of offerings, Finless Foods caters to diverse tastes and dietary choices, ensuring that consumers have access to responsibly sourced food options.
SCiFi Foods is driven by a passion for meat while acknowledging the negative impact of industrial animal agriculture on the environment and animal welfare. Their focus lies in cultivating real meat from cells, making the process cleaner, more compassionate, and highly efficient to address the challenges posed by a growing global population and climate change. Spearheaded by Cofounder & CEO Joshua March and Cofounder & CTO Dr. Kasia Gora, the team is dedicated to creating a future where burgers can be enjoyed without compromising the health of the planet.
Through its innovative technology, Ivy Farm is on a mission to create the best guilt-free, real meat, to tackle one of the world’s biggest polluters - industrial agriculture - and to help the world reach its net zero goals.
Initially spun out of Oxford University, the company has grown rapidly to a team of over 50 experts and recently opened its new state of the art R&D facility and pilot plant in Oxford to fuel its global ambitions.
SuperMeat is a food tech company founded by Ido Savir, Koby Barak, Shir Friedman in 2015. It focuses on producing lab-grown chicken using in vitro cultured cells in a safe and controlled environment, external to the animal’s body. This kind of clean meat will require significantly less resources for its production (99% less land, 90% less water), making it both a healthy and sustainable food source for the coming century.
Mosa Meat is a company made popular by its founder Dr. Mark Post who produced the first burger made completely of culture cells in 2013. This company is located in the Netherlands and has about 100 employees. Mosa Meat produces slaughter-free hamburgers made from meat that is harvested from cow cells instead of raised and slaughtered livestock. They’ve removed the use of FBS from their formula and replaced it with myoglobin to give their meat patties a better color. By growing meat naturally from cells, Mosa Meat strives to accelerate the transition to a truly sustainable global food system.
Aleph Farms is a company founded by Didier Toubia & Shulamit Levenberg. This company is located in Israel and has about 60 employees. Aleph Farms is paving a new way forward in producing delicious beef steaks from non-genetically engineered cells, isolated from a cow. This remarkable alternative to raising livestock uses a fraction of the resources and is antibiotic-free.
Shiok Meats is a cell-based meat and seafood company founded by Ka Yi Ling, Sandhya Sriram. The company is located in Singapore and has about 30 employees. If you’re a fan of surf ‘n’ turf, then you’ll love what Shiok Meats is cooking up. They're on a mission to bring healthy, tasty, and sustainable meats and seafood to our dinner tables by harvesting from cells instead of animals.
Biftek is set to reduce the cost of lab-grown meat with its unique formula. This company is located in Turkey and has about 10 employees. Biftek is working on creating a replacement serum for FBS using its formula that utilizes 44 proteins derived from myosattelite cells.
Steakholder Foods (Nasdaq: STKH) is developing 3D bioprinters and cultivated meat. It is located in Israel and has about 50 employees. It uses 3D printing to produce whole cuts of hybrid meat such as steaks and fish and bypass the need for industrial animal agriculture. Recently it signed a first ever multi-million-dollar agreement with GCC governmental body to commercialize its 3D bio-printing technology.
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