The concept of lab-grown meat has been around for a long time — Churchill is known for having predicted it back in the 1930s. But it wasn’t until 2013 that Mark Post, a professor at the University of Maastricht, created the world’s first lab-grown burger.
“Mark Post took something from science fiction into the real world. Then we knew it could be done. But can it be done at scale? That’s where our technology comes in.”
Meatable, the Dutch startup developing cruelty-free technologies for manufacturing cultured meat and has raised $10 million in financing to support its new direction. When the company unveiled its technology last year, it was one of several companies working on the production of meat derived from animal cells — a method of meat production that theoretically has a far smaller carbon emissions footprint and is better for the environment than traditional animal farming.
And while other companies taking animals out of meat production work with animal stem cells that are already destined to become muscle or fat cells, Meatable works with early-stage stem cells that have the potential to become any type of cell. The advantage is that these early-stage stem cells multiplicate faster and indefinitely. “With these stem cells, we can create large quantities of cells with unprecedented consistency,” Meatable co-founder and CEO Krijnde De Nood explained.
Controlling the fate of these stem cells had proven a challenge until now. Meatable’s technology allows the company to transform early-stage stem cells into the desired cell type with 100% efficiency.
To pursue its new path, the company has raised $7 million from a slew of angel and institutional investors and a $3 million grant from the European Commission. Angel investors include Taavet Hinrikus, the chief executive and co-founder of TransferWise, and Albert Wenger, a managing partner at the New York-based venture firm Union Square Ventures.
Meatable’s De Nood says that the new cash will be used to accelerate the development of its prototype. The small-scale bioreactor the company had initially targeted for development in 2021 will now be ready by 2020 and the company is hoping to have an industry-scale plant online manufacturing thousands of kilograms of meat by 2025, according to De Nood.
Industrial farming is responsible for between 14% and 18% of the greenhouse gas emissions linked to global climate change and Meatable argues that cultured (lab-grown) meat has the potential to use 96% less water and 99% less land than industrial farming.
I believe that this type of innovation may have the ability to change the future for the better as it gives people that are against killing animals to get meat, opportunity to eat meat products without harming the animals.
Links:
https://siliconcanals.com/crowdfunding/meatable-bags-e9m-to-develop-pork-prototype/;
https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/06/dutch-startup-meatable-is-developing-lab-grown-pork-and-has-10-million-in-new-financing-to-do-it/;
https://www.labiotech.eu/food/meatable-lab-grown-pork-prototype/;
This Dutch start-up is doing an amazing job in growing lab-grown meat. It is a breakthrough in technology. Also helping in reducing animal cruelty, reducing carbon emissions, consuming less water, and less land for animal husbandry.