PDD Food Systems Forum: How cultivated meat will make its way to your plate

Agri Matters

English - August 02, 2021 12:04 - 42 minutes - 39 MB
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Previous Episode: E25: Pasi Vainikka of Solar Foods on cultivating new proteins to feed cultured meat, scaling up and getting to carbon negative food production

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Maarten Bosch, CEO of Mosa Meat, Rahul Ray, Senior Director of Tyson Ventures, and Prof Yaakov Nahmias, founder of Future Meat, discuss the future of cultivated meat and how the maturing movement can go from the initial novelty factor to becoming part of consumers' normal diets. The discussion is moderated by Louisa Burwood-Taylor at the Pinduoduo Food Systems Forum.

Highlights of the panel discussion that took place at the Pinduoduo Food Systems Forum on 14-15 July.

• The biggest challenges facing cultivated meat industry now are: (1) Getting production to scale, (2) securing regulatory approval, (3) getting capex to build factories after regulatory approval.
• Yaakov Nahmias of Future Meats estimates it’d require half a trillion dollars to set up enough production capacity worldwide to replace 60% of protein demand. The factories will need to be in South America, Africa, China, Europe, the US. “The only thing that we ever spread like this was the Model T.”
• Mosa Meats currently at “pre-industrial levels” of production with pilot plants in Netherlands, while Future Meat can produce “a cow a day” at current capacity. Plan for Mosa Meats is to develop first industrial-scale production line, hope to coincide roughly with regulatory approval, and then build factories in Europe and in countries that allow for cultivated meat.
• On regulatory approval, Singapore’s approval of Eat Just’s chicken nuggets at the end of last year was a landmark decision that has catalyzed the industry, getting more people and venture capital interested. Regulatory agencies are taking it seriously but not all have figured it out, according to Mosa’s Bosch.
• Cultivated meat can be more efficient than animals because the nutrients cater only to the meat whereas whole animals require nutrients to feed everything from brain, central nervous system, skin, “even the microbiome wants to eat from the same sandwich,” says Yaakov Nahmias, Future Meat

Link to a roundup of the full proceedings of the Pinduoduo Food Systems Forum is available here.