From $330,000 to $10: Lab-grown meat is coming to a plate near you

Sascha: [00:00:03] From Equity Mates media. This is The Dive. I'm your host, Sascha Kelley. Over the past decade, the biggest agricultural revolution since the domestication of livestock has been taking place. It started in 2013 in the Netherlands, when the world's first lab grown hamburger was eaten. 

Audio Clip: [00:00:23] But there is quite some intense taste. It's close to meat. It's not that juicy. The Constitution is perfect. 

Audio Clip: [00:00:30] It's a leanness to it. But. But the bite feels like a conventional hamburger. 

Sascha: [00:00:36] Cultured meat, cultivated meat lab grown meat, sell based me. Know, kill, make whatever you call it. What started as Dutch researcher Mark Post's effort to prove you could produce meat without killing animals has since exploded into one of the hottest trends in agriculture in 2020. Funding for lab grown meat crossed $1 billion in 2021. It crossed 2 billion. More than a hundred companies around the world are trying to create cell based protein ranging from lab grown lamb to lab grown oysters and even lab grown foie gras. And we're seeing progress. In just the past few months, Singapore's government wined and dined VIP guests with cultivated meat at COP 27. And lab grown chicken passed its first hurdle with the US Food and Drug Administration. It's Monday, the 13th of March. And today I want to know how close are my to eating lab grown meat? And is lab grown meat vegan? To talk about this today, I'm joined by the co-founder of Equity Mates. It's Alec Renehan. Alec. Welcome to The Dive. 

Alec: [00:01:48] Thanks, Sascha. Good to be here. A fascinating story, one that I have been excited about for a while, have followed for a while. And I've never tried love grown meat, but it gets closer every day. 

Sascha: [00:01:59] That was going to be my first question. Have you tasted it? Because I imagine the responses always taste like chicken, right? 

Alec: [00:02:06] I guess so. I don't. I would assume it tastes like chicken. It is chicken. It's just grown in a lab rather than in a paddock. 

Sascha: [00:02:12] We're going to dig into that in a second. In 2013, we saw the first lab grown meat patty. Ten years later, we're starting to see lab grown meat start to reach commercial markets for the first time. But I'm going to start with a really basic question, Alec. How is lab grown meat actually made? I mean, there's a clue there already in a lab, but what are the further details? [00:02:37][24.6]

Alec: [00:02:38] Yes. So it's made by harvesting the stem cells from animals, which are then put in a petri dish. Those cells are fed with amino acids and carbohydrates to promote growth, and then they grow in a bioreactor. The resulting product is made and it's turned into a meat product. Consumers can it's biologically that animal grown from its stem cells.

Sascha: [00:03:03] And that's an important distinction to make, that there's a difference between plant based meat and lab grown meat, because plant based meat has also kind of had its real moment in the last few years. 

Alec: [00:03:16] Yeah. Beyond Meat Impossible Foods, people are probably familiar with some of those brands. They're probably seeing them on supermarket shelves. Plant based meat is made from soy or other non-meat ingredients. Chemically, biologically, it's not meat, it's plant. The companies are just trying to make it cook, look and taste like meat. Essentially, plant based meat is a replica that's different to lab grown make. It's made from animal cells directly. It is chemically made. It's just produced in a different way. Rather than growing an animal at a farm or in a field, it's grown in a lab. 

Sascha: [00:04:01] Just the language around growing meat in a lab is taking me a little while to get used to. Look, we've mentioned this lab grown beef patty from 2013 a couple of times. What we haven't mentioned is that that one patty cost $330,000 to produce. How much has technology improved in the last ten years? Has that price come down or is this still a really expensive burger? 

Alec: [00:04:28] Yeah, 330,000. You would think that makes it the world's most expensive burger. But the really fascinating news, the story of technological development in this space, that one beef patty, according to Forbes, is now less than 10 USD. So in a decade, it's gone from 330000 to 10 USD. And that's why we're talking about this story today, because it is edging closer to mass market consumer prices. 

Sascha: [00:04:59] Ten points. Look, it's still an expensive burger, but it's a lot closer to what I'd open my wallet for. I'm not going to think a house deposit of plus on one meal.

Alec: [00:05:10] Yeah, well, good luck getting a burger for less than $10 on Ubereats these days. But anyway, that's a separate story, because it's not just the Ba'ath Party that's come massively down in price in 2019. California based eat just said it had reduced the cost of a single lab grown chicken nugget from $1,000 a nugget to $50 a nugget. Now that's still pretty expensive for a chicken nugget. 

Sascha: [00:05:36] But just. One nugget. 

Alec: [00:05:37] For One nugget yet. But that cost curve in less than a decade is pretty incredible. In 2019 eight just said it would take eight more years for its products to become cost competitive with conventional meat and that was four years ago. So, Sascha, they're probably well on their way. McKinsey estimates the lab grown may could reach cost parity with conventional meat by 2030. So again, not that far away. It's important to stress here that not all meats are created equal. Some meats are quite simple to produce ground beef and chicken for chicken nuggets, whereas others are made of much more complex tissue. They have more complex textures and they have muscle fat and connective tissue that need to be held together in a process known as scaffolding. So those types of meat are much harder to produce. Basically what I'm saying, Sacha, is chicken nuggets might be cost competitive by 2030, but your revised steak might take a little bit longer. 

Sascha: [00:06:43] Yeah, so no wagyu beef on the menu, but maybe meatloaf. That's what I'm understanding. So costs are coming down and that's good news As a result. Are we going to see this lab grown meat roll out, do you think, in the next seven, eight years?

Alec: [00:07:00] So cost is just the first challenge that these new companies face. The second is regulatory, and that's the big hurdle that some companies are starting to jump over. Now. Singapore was the first country to legalise the commercial sale of lab grown meat and that was really eight just chicken nuggets, you know, those ones that were $1,000 and are now 50. Mm hmm. That happened in late 2020. And we're starting to see other countries follow suit. In the United States. In November last year, the Food and Drug Administration told Upside Foods that it had no questions about the safety of their cell based chicken, no questions for human consumption. The California based Start-Up still does need more regulatory approvals. The US Food and Drug Administration is just one of the organisations. They also need approval from the US Department of Agriculture, which they haven't gotten yet. But we're starting to see regulators tick some boxes. Policymakers in China, Israel and the Netherlands have also signalled support for lab grown May, but none of them have approved commercial sales yet.

Sascha: [00:08:11] Yet what a great word to finish on. So costs are coming down and regulators are approving the product. So it's likely in the future we're going to start seeing these products in supermarket shelves. The big question is will people eat them? Let's talk about that after the break. Welcome back to The Dive. Today we're talking about lab grown meat. So, Alec, Singapore approved lab grown chicken in 2020. How has the reception been? 

Alec: [00:08:42] We actually haven't been able to find a lot of information. And I put that down to the fact that it's still a very expensive chicken nugget. There was a Guardian article from about two years ago where a reporter tried it and said it reminded her of a McDonald's Happy Meal. That seems like a good endorsement for a chicken nugget. But there was an article from Futurism where their reporter tried it and got, quote, weirdly gassy. So let's call it mixed reviews at this point. 

Sascha: [00:09:14] I mean, I'm taking my hat off to her dedication to the cause of sharing such personal details.

Alec: [00:09:20] Yeah. In November last year at COP 27, the Singapore government served for about a dozen attendees. They served grilled chicken thigh with mushroom rice. But the chicken was from eight just lab grown chicken. Apparently. Reportedly, the entree was met with mixed results. So I guess it's mixed at the moment. There still are a number of challenges for the lab grown meat industry, namely the appearance of it, the texture of it, the taste of it. Still a few hurdles to jump through. 

Sascha: [00:09:56] I mean, they sound like all the hurdles when it comes to cooking. And it sounds like really similar to plant based meat where beyond meat and impossible food are also tackling the same hurdles, creating a product that basically mimics meat, looks, cooks and tastes like, for want of a better word, the real thing.

Alec: [00:10:14] Yeah. And that that point, the real thing is an important one because what we're starting to see is a real pushback on lab grown meat and plant based meat being called meat, just like the dairy farmers around the world don't like. Almond milk and rice milk and oat milk being called milk. There are industry bodies that want to, I guess, protect the word meat and the name when it comes to lab grown meat is going to become a real point of contention because for customers there's something quite different in the proposition of lab grown meat and no kill meat. 

Sascha: [00:10:52] Yeah. Without going down a completely different rabbit hole. Alec It's a bit like the champagne region having ownership over sparkling wine from a particular area. Who's to say that the same can't happen with meat? 

Alec: [00:11:06] Hmm. Well, yeah, I think if there are, you know, labelling laws passed and meat is only from farmed animals, then it'll be a real challenge for this industry. 

Sascha: [00:11:17] Which leads us to a key question. Like when it comes to customer adoption, is lab grown meat vegan? 

Alec: [00:11:23] Yeah. Now, this is a big question and a big commercial question because vegan customers will be the early adopters. Traditional meat eaters won't be as quick to switch to a lab grown, more expensive alternative, but vegan customers potentially will. They'll be the initial target market in much the same way they've been the target market for plant based meat. And there's not a great answer to this question. So, Sascha, I'm going to ask you before we get into it, is lab grown meat vegan? 

Sascha: [00:11:55] Well, before we did this episode, Alex, I would have said yes, absolutely, because of those things that you just outlined. But there's something that you said right at the beginning that really stuck with me, and that's the fact that they're taking animal cells to make it and growing it in a lab. So that makes me think that animals are being used in the production of these products. 

Alec: [00:12:17] Yeah, yeah. That is the criticism at the moment. And I think a key reason why it's been so hard to simply answer this question is because there are so many different reasons people become vegan. And so for some people, lab grown mate might assuage their ethical concerns and then for others it doesn't. And so I think probably the easiest way to step through it is to step through the three key reasons why people become vegan animal suffering and wanting to reduce animal suffering, then the climate and environmental concerns and then finally, the health concerns. 

Sascha: [00:12:56] Well, let's start with animal suffering then, because that is the one that stuck with me. This meat may be lab grown, but as I understand it, it does involve animals in the production process.

Alec: [00:13:06] Yeah, exactly. What you said earlier is the key criticism of life brown meat. It still requires animal cells and it still leads to animal suffering. For example, lab grown beef uses fatal bovine serum, a blood-like substance extracted from unborn calves. The reports are that scientists have been looking for decades to produce a viable. Alternative, but have struggled. So for vegans that are wanting to reduce animal suffering. Lab grown mate doesn't tick the box. And that's a key reason why notable vegan societies around the world have been reluctant or outright refuse to endorse lab grown meat.

Sascha: [00:13:49] Okay, but what about people who are vegan for environmental reasons? So they're hoping through their diet to make an impact on reducing the impact of climate change. Yeah. 

Alec: [00:14:00] Now this one seems like a bit of a slam dunk, doesn't it? It doesn't require the vast amounts of farmland that traditional farming does, and you would then assume it doesn't have any of the same emissions that traditional farming. 

Sascha: [00:14:12] But I feel like there's a buck coming here. 

Alec: [00:14:15] And there is a coming When it comes to lab grown may the answer isn't entirely straightforward. It depends on the mate. And that's because growing mate in bioreactors requires significant amounts of energy, particularly as these bioreactors get bigger and scale. So a study by Dutch environmental consultancy C.A. Delft in 2021 found that lab grown pork and chicken are only viable options to reduce emissions if production is powered by renewable energy. Otherwise, it's about the same from an emissions point of view. That same study found that lab grown beef can achieve climate gains than its farmed counterparts, no matter what kind of power is used. Because conventional cattle farming is just so resource intensive.

Sascha: [00:15:11] Okay, so if I'm vegan for climate related reasons, then that beef patty is definitely on my shopping list. But I'm saying no to my chicken and pork. Which leads to the third reason. What about health? If you're a vegan, because of the impacts that it has on your individual health. 

Alec: [00:15:29] As we said, Sascha, this lab grown meat is still biologically made. So if you're cutting out meat for health reasons, I think stick to the plant based alternative. 

Sascha: [00:15:41] Oh, there you go. I thought this was going to be a pretty cut and dry episode, but it's fascinating to see how many complex issues still arise from these new developments. Look, I'm going to say that I'm not going to be partaking in it until it comes down to a cheaper price point. 50 bucks for a chicken nugget is still a little bit too expensive for me. 

Alec: [00:16:02] I think there's been a lot of contentious issues raised in this episode. I think that isn't contentious at all. 

Sascha: [00:16:09] Yeah, it's a really expensive Happy Meal. Look, we want to hear from you. Do you think lab grown meat passes the vegan test? Contact us by email thedive@equitymates.com. And if you could hit, follow or subscribe wherever you're listening right now, right there in your podcast player, pull out your app. Make sure you do it now. Then you'll never miss an episode and it really helps us reach more people. Alec, thanks so much for joining me on today's episode of The Dive. 

Alec: [00:16:35] Thanks, Sascha.

Sascha: [00:16:36] Until next time.