People say no to lab grown meat!
Since the first 'lab grown burger' was unveiled more than a decade ago, billions of pounds have been thrown at the technology... wealthy investors included Bill Gates and Richard Branson.
You can see why people invested, with a growing population, and growing middle class especially, the demand for meat, or let's say meat derivative, excuse the pun, seemed a likely growth market. I mean this is food, after all, and it's basic-food even with a high tech twist, essential.
The cultivated meat market thus far has involved extracting cells derived from animal foetuses and then cultivating them in bioreactors.
But it seems that 10 years on and A LOT OF VC MONEY the industry faces BIG PROBLEMS!
he expensive nutrients required to nurture lab farmed meat and the the long time scales involved in growing it has hampered developments.
When we say LONG time scales we are not joking, ATM the medium term goal for the lab-meat industry is to put out 30 million pounds of meat annually, but regular meat production stands at 100 billion pounds annually, so the industry isn't set up for scale, and there is no way it's going to be competing with regular meat in the 2020s.
NB that original burger in 2013, that cost $300K!
And there are still huge technological problems to overcome, cultivating meat in the lab is just plain tricky, and there are still regulatory hurdles to overcome.
The industry now probably needs government funding to survive, as the VC money is drying up, unsruprisingly.
No demand...?
Maybe the biggest problem the industry faces and the real reason for the failing of so many lab-meat start ups is the near total lack of demand, people are just disgusted by the idea of this Silicone Valley Frankfood....
Our taste for food is shaped by culture, psychology, family and tradition, and literally NONE of these are to be found in meat grown in a lab!
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Never tried it, I wonder the taste. It could be solution for growing food demand if healthy.
I think that's why so many people invested so much money, but there's just no demand at the end of the day!
Soylent Green is people!
It's a Classic !INDEED
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That wouldn't be half as bad as this|!
Ooh that's a hard no from me! I already don't trust food producers packaging supposedly real food for me. I sure don't want some unidentifiable concoction wrapped up in a nice pretty package and called 'meat'. They can shove it down their own kid's gullet but I won't bring it into my house. Just the thought makes me gag lol.
Yes fair play, I'm inclined to agree!
Yep, an easy pass for me also; pretty confortable in letting the investors eat all the lab grown food they want though! :P
Hmm yes you can't imagine millionaires eating this stuff, can you!
Spot on! ;)
Why meat at all?
Fair question, maybe better to do without altogether!
Processed gloop, is processed gloop, doesn't matter how it's dressed up. take quorn for example, the chemical processing of the fungi need to make the product is very intensive and not something I'd want to eat.
I'd rather eat crickets or meal worms if push came to "not enough food for everyone".
It makes me laugh that people will prefer to eat an animal that had a short, possibly brutal life and maybe never went outside before being killed and turned into something highly processed. So much for animal lovers. That's a part of why I gave up meat. Growing protein from cells ought to be more efficient, but it may not be simple.
I'd consider reading cultured meat. I'm also not against eating insects. Some people say that will be forced on us, but I bet that's a long way off.
Of course there's nothing macho about eating meat you bought.
I would try lab meat, and I still see as promising. However, I am not sure if it will be possible to produce it in large scale, like the author is questioning. It is a good point, it is expensive! Growing tissues in lab is an amazing idea, I know a researcher who is getting lots of money growing epidermal tissues for cosmetic companies to test instead of using animals.
I am always against this term of "forcing" so extreme hehe. But I agree that in a near future, you will find it is a good alternative, less expensive. So people would really ponder as an alternative in their tables. I came from a culture that isn't used to eating ants, grasshoppers. But we eat a lot of shrimp so why not add more arthropods to our menu ?
The technology will evolve. Just see how electronics has changed over the last few decades. I expect there will still be a market for premium 'real' meat, but does it really matter how a chicken nugget or a hot dog was made? I'd like to see an end to factory farming.
I would love to see that too... I am always looking for eating more ethically produced food. What is called Ethical omnivorism. And for sure eating something produced in lab like I say it would be supported by me. I believe a lot in technology, what I saw in the last 30 years is amazing in general technology, probably you saw that too. But for now I try to research as much as possible about what we find around to shop is less "factory farming" like you said! Buying eggs from a local producer is something that I consider being better than buying white eggs from the groceries that comes from these massive exploratory factories.
It is promising indeed but many things that are promising they still have production limitations. I heard once a vegan saying that if this type of food becomes popular he becomes a meat eater again. I think the no demand is because of the price! I am a non-rich costumer so if you put me in a table a lab meat costing dozens of times more than a a regular meat, I will still go towards the regular meat! If there isn't a way to reduce this cost, is worthless
If this was the alternative then I would definitely have a small holding of sorts because I would never eat anything created in a lab. I won't even eat sausages with cereal as an ingredient filler so this failing is actually very good news.
Just gross!
I stopped eating flesh some years back for my own reasons, but this lab meat is ridiculous. It’s literally a science experiment. I’ll stick to my boring black bean burgers
This whole concept grosses me out. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.