Lab grown meat is on a roll.
From regulatory approvals to breakthrough scientific advancements, cellular agriculture keeps gaining significant momentum.
What’s happening:
- Leonardo DiCaprio backed startup Mosa Meat just became the first ever cultivated meat company to earn a B Corporation status, meaning they meet the highest standard of social and environmental sustainability.
- Mosa Meat also declared they will be applying for regulatory approvals across North America, Asia, Europe, and the UK for their cultivated beef
- In a historic announcement, The Orthodox Union, the world’s largest kosher certification authority, declared that Isreal startup SuperMeat’s chicken cell lines are in fact kosher
- UPSIDE Foods is now officially generating revenue, with their cultivated chicken being added full time to the menu at popular San Francisco restaurant Bar Crenn. The company also just announced a new $140 million production facility just outside of Chicago
- SteakHolder Foods (NASDAQ: STKH) unveiled their newest technology breakthrough, a software that allows new types of testing and optimizations for their 3D bio printing machines
- Notable food tech incubator The Kitchen Hub announced a new $70M fund and stated a large focus will be on cellular agriculture, including cell cultivated meat startups
Why it matters:
- There have been long standing doubts that cultivated meat would ever be able to achieve regulatory approvals or attract significant venture funding, both of which are proving to be false
- Cultivated meat being declared kosher unlocks a multi billion dollar opportunity and is yet another potential cultural turning point
- With more emphasis than ever on carbon reduction and getting to net zero emissions cellular agriculture could very well be on the path to global adoption
The intrigue:
- Cultivated meat is a genuine biotech opportunity and new entrants are starting to emerge with innovative concepts
- Biotech company Pluri (NASDAQ: PLUR) recently signed a $4.2M contract with the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to advance their cell therapy for for radiation poisoning
- Interestingly, Pluri is also the co-creator of Ever After Foods with Israel’s largest food company Tnuva. Ever After Foods is a new paradigm of production for cultivated meat that goes beyond traditional bioreactors and uses patented 3D cell expansion
- South Korean biotech startup Simple Planet has announced plans to begin bringing their cultivated meat powder and unsaturated fat to North America
- Instead of cultivating pieces of meat or seafood, Simple Planet is looking to use their thirteen different cell lines as nutritionally dense additions to food and beverages, even including food for infants
