At first there were the two big names, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods. Soon there will be hundreds, maybe even thousands, of players in the ‘meat mimicking’ business. There are those, like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, that are working on plant-based substitutes. Then there are other companies working on fungi-based replacements. Finally, there are companies working on ‘cultured’ replacements, which is the term used for ‘lab grown’ meat.
Cultured meat companies are hopefully that America’s two big food regulators – the FDA and the Department of Agriculture – will set the rules for cultured meat to be sold in the US within the next six months. On this timeline, these companies expect cultured meat to start popping up in restaurants in 2022 (grocery stores, on the other hand, are likely years away from having the volumes or price points required). Plant-based substitutes grew at 45% last year, to be worth $1.4 billion in 2020. They are fast being accepted in the mainstream as a substitute for meat. The fascinating question to answer now is, will cultured meat be received the same way?
If cultured meat does garner mainstream acceptance, this will go a long way to solving some of the biggest challenges of our modern world – climate change, resource use, animal suffering and hunger. Plenty of the biggest companies in the meat supply chain are realising this, and this article profiles their efforts to stay ahead of their competition, balance their traditional livestock businesses with this new technology, and ultimately win in the new industry of cultured meat.
This is an excerpt from our Thought Starters email. Once a week we send you 5 interesting articles that have caught our attention, to get you thinking. No spam, we guarantee.