Next steps for cultivated meat: Summary
- Meatly is the first cultivated meat company to achieve regulatory approval in Europe
- It has significantly cut the costs of its bioreactor and cell culture media
- The next step for the company is upscaling – it is planning a 20,000L pilot facility
- Cultivated meat has many advantages beside sustainability, including traceability and consistency of supply chains
- Meatly is committed to pet food, but CEO Owen Ensor did not rule out making human food in the future
One of the major barriers for cultivated meat companies to succeed is regulation. For Meatly, however, this is not such a significant problem – it is the first cultivated meat company in Europe to achieve regulatory approval.
The cultivated pet-food company is now focused on cost-cutting – reducing the significant production expenditures that are a near-constant presence in the minds of cultivated meat producers.
Progress so far is positive. Meatly has cut the cost of its cell culture media to 22p per litre, explained CEO Owen Ensor at Future Food-Tech London last month. At scale, he suggests, this could be 1.5p per litre.
Another cost cutting challenge is the price of equipment. Meatly has reduced the cost of its 300L bioreactor from the typical £250,000 to £15,000.
The next stage for the business is scaling, something that the cultivated meat sector is beginning to achieve.
Scaling cultivated meat production
Ensor is confident in the cultivated meat sector’s ability to scale.
Companies such as Vow are operating facilities with 20,000L bioreactors, and Meatly itself is building a 20,000L pilot facility.
Other companies operating at scale include French start-up Gourmey, which now has a 5,000L facility.
“We are already approaching scalability, and now it is about how do we achieve mass market pricing.”
Advantages of cultivated meat
The sustainability narrative has been declining in some areas of food and beverage. For a sector that has focused on sustainability as much as cultivated meat, how can it reframe itself for both consumers and investors?
The sector has many advantages, Ensor emphasises, to appeal both commercially and to consumers.
On the commercial side, it’s traceable, its supply chains are consistent, and it’s “sterile by design”.
To appeal to consumers, it also has the advantage in the arena of animal welfare, one of the key drivers of vegetarian and vegan diets.
The future of Meatly
As a company that has made its name in pet food, what’s the next step for Meatly? Could it pivot to human food?
“We love the pet food industry”, Ensor emphasised. “It’s an industry we have great relationships and investors in.”
Yet he didn’t rule out exploring the human food market. “We have the same technology and the same processes that we can use in human food as well”.
Meatly could use this technology to create human food, he suggested. Alternatively, it could be licensed out to a third party.
