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August 9, 2022
January 23, 2022
Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of cultivated meat start-up Eat Just, has a vision: He imagines a day when meat grown in a lab is available everywhere from Michelin-star restaurants to street vendors and fast food chains.
But more investment — and regulatory approvals — will be needed to get there. Cultivated or cultured meats are real animal products made in labs and commercial production facilities. Right now, the process is costly, but researchers and entrepreneurs say over time manufacturing will become more efficient and less expensive. If consumers switch to cultivated meat, it could help reduce greenhouse gases from agriculture and ease climate change.
Eat Just also sells plant-based egg products made from mung beans in stores including Whole Foods and Publix in the U.S., and it employs more than 200 people.
To date, it says, more than 700 people in Singapore have been served its cultivated meat products — a number Tetrick hopes to rapidly scale up as it receives approvals in other countries.
Eat Just
Once approved, Eat Just said it has already laid the groundwork to hit the ground running. The company’s Good Meat division announced a $267 million capital raise last year to build vessels and systems that will ramp up production in both the U.S. and Singapore, where it currently manufactures, with the goal of having that equipment operational in the next two years.
It also announced in August it would be building a facility in Qatar, in partnership with Doha Venture Capital and Qatar Free Zones Authority, but much more capital will be needed to build bioreactors large enough to scale up.
According to nonprofit research advocacy group The Good Food Institute, there are more than 100 start-ups working on cultivated meat products, and larger companies are also ramping up their own operations.
JBS, the global protein giant, acquired BioTech Foods in late 2021, investing $100 million to enter the cultivated meat market and build a research and development centre in Brazil. The Spanish biotech company is another leader in the cultivated food space, focusing on developing biotechnology for producing cultivated meats.
The climate change angle
These developments come as consumers have shown increased concern about climate change and a desire to change their eating habits to fight it. Plant-based meat products have become more ubiquitous, popping up on menus like KFC’s or showing up in the grocery aisle at Target.
Cultivated meat could provide Americans with another alternative and could coexist with products made by companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods.
“The world will not get to net-zero emissions without addressing food and land,” said Caroline Bushnell, vice president of corporate engagement at the Good Food Institute.
“Our food system’s role on climate change is generally underappreciated, but industrial animal agriculture is a major contributor,” she said. “Alternative proteins, including cultivated meat, can be a key aspect of how we reduce the emissions from our food system. It won’t be possible to actually to meet our obligations under the Paris Climate Agreement unless industrial meat production goes down.”
Chef Jose Andres, a restaurateur and founder of the nonprofit humanitarian group World Central Kitchen, wants to be part of that solution. Last month, he joined the board of Eat Just’s Good Meat division and has pledged to sell its cultivated chicken at one of his U.S. restaurants pending regulatory review.
Promises like that can help move Tetrick closer to his vision. But costs also have to come down as well.
“A local diner or a big fast-food chain is not going to take this if it’s a whole lot more expensive than conventional meat. They’re going to take it when it’s close — or even better when it’s below the cost. And that’s what we need to fight for,” Andres said.
