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Submitted via IRC for takyon
Cargill Inc., one of the largest global agricultural companies, has joined Bill Gates and other business giants to invest in a nascent technology to make meat from self-producing animal cells amid rising consumer demand for protein that's less reliant on feed, land and water.
Memphis Meats, which produces beef, chicken and duck directly from animal cells without raising and slaughtering livestock or poultry, raised $17 million from investors including Cargill, Gates and billionaire Richard Branson, according to a statement Tuesday on the San Francisco-based startup's website. The fundraising round was led by venture-capital firm DFJ, which has previously backed several social-minded retail startups.
They made the first ever chicken and duck meat that were produced without the animals.
The company expects to have a product in stores by 2021.
"They're the leader in clean meat. There's no one else that far along," says venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson, whose firm led Memphis Meats' recent $17 million Series A. Before he met Valeti in 2016, Jurvetson spent almost five years researching lab-grown meat and meat alternatives, believing the market was set to explode. "They're the only one that convinced me they can get to a price point and a scale that would make a difference in the industry," he says.
Cargill is the largest privately held corporation in the United States in terms of revenue ($109.7 billion in 2017).
Previously: Lab-Grown Chicken (and Duck) Could be on the Menu in 4 Years
Related: Lab-grown meat would 'cut emissions and save energy'
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Would You Try Silicon Valley's Bloody Plant Burger(s)?
Lab-Grown Pork Closer to Reality
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday November 05 2017, @07:01PM
I will happily eat prole-priced lab meat if it can match the meats that are being replaced in terms of quality, texture, and price. Getting the texture of more complex cuts right looks like it will be a hard task, along with scaling up the process, but I am confident that it can be done. Easier stuff like ground beef or meatballs should be a piece of meatcake though.
If done right, these cellular processes could match "Wagyu" levels of quality, at a lower price, with no animals killed, at a fraction of the environmental impact (land/water used), and provide a FRESHER product to the consumer since you could put factories much closer to where people live (while preventing these kinds of incidents [slate.com]).
It could also be used as the basis for a cheaper pink slime... but people already eat billions of pounds of that stuff [yum.com].
Lab grown meat has the POTENTIAL to be better than traditional meat in every way, while avoiding that real prole shit... like Gaaark's mealworms.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]