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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Cultured Meat

Air Protein, GOOD Meat, IntegriCulture Among the Semifinalists for XPRIZE’s Alt-Protein Competition

Nonprofit XPRIZE has announced 28 semifinalists teams that will move forward in the Feed the Next Billion competition. The multi-year competition will support companies developing compelling chicken and fish alternatives that replicate or outperform the real thing in terms of nutrition, environmental sustainability, animal welfare, and taste and texture. 

The competition, first announced at the end of 2020, is being conducted in partnership with ASPIRE, the project management arm of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC). Grand-prize winners will not be chosen until 2024. when multiple winners will collectively receive $15 million.

For now, the 28 finalists chosen to continue the competition will have the next year to work with the competition, ASPIRE, and The Tony Robbins Foundation to develop the first iterations of their products. Up to 10 finalist teams will be chosen towards the end of 2022 and will split a “milestone award” of $2.5 million. 

Those 10 finalists will have one last round of competition where they will need to create “at least twenty-five cuts of structured chicken breast or fish fillet analogs of 115 gram or four ounce that replicate the sensory properties, versatility, and nutritional profile of conventional chicken or fish.” One grand prize winner will receive $7 million, with second- and third-place winners getting $2 million and $1 million, respectively.

The 28 finalists chosen this week represent all three pillars of alternative protein: plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation. Some of these companies are better known than others. Eat Just’s GOOD Meat, for example, is the only company in the world that has regulatory approval to sell cultivated meat (in Singapore). MeatOurFuture, on the other hand, is a public-private partnership that is known primarily in South Africa at this point. Others, including plant-based seafood company Brew51 from India, Japan’s IntegriCulture, and Air Protein, are all at various stages of development in terms of their products.

You can read the full list of companies, which span 14 different countries, here.

XPRIZE’s Feed the Next Billion competition was developed in response to the organization’s Future of Food Impact Roadmap, where the organization pinpointed 12 “breakthrough opportunities” that could help build a better food system. Alt-protein is a major area.

No one company developing alternative proteins has yet proven their technology and/or ingredients can feed the next billion. There remain many, many questions around the nutrition of products, the cost of making them, and, for some, whether or not they can ever really be produced at that scale. XPRIZE’s competition will no doubt go some ways towards answering those questions over the next few years.  

Report: Nestlé Is Getting Into Cultivated Meat Through Deal With Israel’s Future Meat

CPG giant Nestlé intends to enter the cultured meat market via a partnership with Israel-based alt-protein company Future Meat, according to a report from Bloomberg. 

Unnamed sources familiar with the matter said Nestlé is working on various products that mix its own plant-based proteins with cultivated meat from Future Meat. 

More granular details on the deal, such as specific products are not available at this time. Future Meat recently opened what it says is the world’s first production facility for cultured meat. The plant, located in Future Meat’s hometown of Rehovot, Israel, can produce 500 kilograms of cultured meat per day, or the equivalent to about 5,000 hamburgers, according to the company. The new facility is currently processing cultured chicken, pork, and lamb. Beef production is also in the works.

Future Meat’s end products will be a combination of cultivated and plant-based protein, which is exactly what Nestlé is aiming for in its deal with the company. Future Meat told the Spoon recently that its products are currently 45 to 75 percent cultured meat, with an edible scaffold made of plant protein.

Earlier this year, Future Meat told The Spoon it has been able to decrease the cost of cultured meat production by 1,000x over the last three years. At last check, the company had brought the cost of its cultured chicken breast down to $7.50 USD per quarter-pound serving. It followed that up with news that the production price could drop to $2 within the next 12 to 18 months.

Actual product launches for both Future Meat and Nestlé are contingent on the companies getting regulatory approvals. Currently, Future Meat is working to get regulatory approval here in the U.S., with the goal of selling its products in foodservice venues next year. A partnership with a major CPG like Nestlé may boost the company’s ambitions in this area.

Aleph Farms Raises $105M in Series B Funding

Cultivated meat company Aleph Farms announced today it has completed a $105 million Series B round of funding, bringing the company’s total funding to date to $118 million. The Series B round was led by L Catterton and DisruptAD with participation from Skyviews Life Science, Thai Union, BRF, and CJ CheilJedang. Existing investors VisVires New Protein, Strauss Group, Cargill, Peregrine Ventures, and CPT Capital also participated in the round.

Israel-based Aleph Farms said the new funds will go towards increasing manufacturing, growing operations internationally, and expanding product lines. Currently, the company is developing a cultivated beef steak and will unveil a prototype for that product in November at the Agri-Food Innovation Summit. 

There is of course an enormous difference between unveiling a prototype and making these whole-muscle cuts of cultivated meat at scale. One of the challenges for cultivated meat companies is being able to produce large quantities of product at a cost that is on par with traditional meat. Aleph Farms launched a new production process at the end of 2020 that will eventually be able to reach that price parity, according to the company.

The process is the first part of a phased build-out for Aleph’s forthcoming pilot production facility, which the company says will be operational by 2022. Aleph Farms also plans to do an initial market launch at that time. The Series B funding will, in bigger-picture terms, go towards helping the company realize that goal. 

Aleph’s announcement today follows recent news from other cultivated meat companies that are also opening pilot production facilities and also aiming for commercial launches in 2022. That includes MeaTech 3D, also based in Israel and also developing whole cuts of cultivated meat. Another Israeli company, Future Meat, has already opened its facility and says it plans to sell cultivated meat in the U.S. by 2022.

Before anyone sells anything, however, these companies must get regulatory approval for each market they want to enter. So far, just one company, Eat Just, has regulatory approval to sell cultivated meat, and that’s only in Singapore. Along with price parity, getting regulatory approval is a major topic in the cultivated meat conversation these days. 

Aleph Farms says it is working with regulatory agencies, though the company did not specify for which markets. Part of the company’s international expansion will be to the United Arab Emirates and the wider Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. Aleph said it is also evaluating the possibility of a manufacturing facility located in the UAE.

MeaTech Says It Will Develop Cultured Pork Products

Israel-based alt-protein company MeaTech 3D has begun research and development activities around cultivated pork, the company announced today. 

Initial activities will focus largely on developing porcine cell lines, which the company says could expand its number of potential addressable markets since pork is the most widely consumed meat in the world. The porcine cell lines will add to MeaTech’s existing cell ag efforts, including cell lines for beef and chicken.

In May of this year, the company announced plans for a pilot production facility that will first be used to increase the production of its cultured fat product and then go on to produce entire cuts of cultivated meat using the company’s 3D bioprinting technology. 

Cell lines are a crucial step in the process of making cultivated meat, since cells are the starting inputs for any eventual product. However, creating new cell lines is an expensive and time-consuming process, and researchers are still figuring out which types of cells are best suited for the kind of large-scale manufacturing most cultured meat companies are aspiring to eventually do.

Most of those companies so far have stuck to developing cultured beef or chicken products, not pork. Despite the latter being the world’s most most popular meat, a very small handful of companies is actually focused on that particular protein right now. Future Meat Technologies, also based in Israel, says its newly opened production facility is producing cultured pork. Dutch startup Meatable, New Age Meats, and Higher Steaks have also done pork prototypes during the last few years. 

MeaTech’s specific focus on cell line development will further set it apart from the masses as more companies announce plans to explore cultured pork products in the future.

Future Meat Opens Production Facility, Aims to Sell Cultured Meat in the US by 2022

Future Meat has officially opened what it says is the world’s first production facility for cultured meat. The plant, located in the company’s hometown of Rehovot, Israel, is a big step in accelerating Future Meat’s timeline for getting regulatory approval to sell cultured meat and then actually getting products onto consumers’ plates.

Future Meat says the plant can produce 500 kilograms of cultured meat per day, which is equivalent to roughly 5,000 hamburgers. Those numbers may pale in comparison to traditional meat (this McDonald’s factory produces 5 million burgers every day), but for the extremely nascent cultured meat industry, they make for significant progress. 

Prof. Yaakov Nahmias, founder and chief scientific officer of Future Meat Technologies, told The Spoon that the new facility is currently processing cultured chicken, pork, and lamb. Beef production will arrive soon. The company’s first official products to come out of the facility will be a cultured chicken breast, chicken fingers, and hamburgers. 

Earlier this year, Future Meat told The Spoon it has been able to decrease the cost of cultured meat production by 1,000x over the last three years. At last check, the company had brought the cost of its cultured chicken breast down to $7.50 USD per quarter-pound serving. It followed that up with news that the production price could drop to $2 within the next 12 to 18 months.

Future Meat’s end products will be a combination of cell-cultured and plant-based protein. Nahmias said that his company’s products are 45 to 75 percent cultured meat, with an edible scaffold made of plant protein. Cell-based protein will replace plant-based elements in future generations of product as the cost of cultured meat continues to decrease.

No technologies out there, he said, use 100 percent cultured meat. “Meat is composed of cells and a three-dimensional protein scaffold that holds the cells together. Companies are either adding the edible scaffold to the cells or adding the cells to the edible scaffold. It is pretty much the same.”

Importantly, Future Meat has also developed a serum-free growth medium for feeding cells. This allows the company to avoid using the controversial fetal bovine serum (FBS), which is both expensive and ethically controversial. According to Nahmias, Future Meat’s medium is made up of a mixture of amino acids, oils, glucose, and naturally occurring hormones. “Removing serum is a critics step in market realization of cultured meat,” he said. “Companies that fail to do that require the slaughter of dozens of calves to grow a single hamburger.” The company’s chicken, lamb, and pork cells are currently growing “in scale” without serum at the production facility.

Future Meat may be the first to open the doors on a production facility for cultured meat, but others won’t be long in coming. Bioprinting startup MeaTech 3D, also based in Israel, says it will have a production facility operational by 2022. San Francisco, California-based Wildtype also opened a production facility this week, though it is focused solely on cultured seafood at the moment and is therefore not a direct competitor to Future Meat. 

Down the line, Future Meat would like to open another production facility, ideally in the United States. For now, Future Meat is working to get regulatory approval here in the U.S., with the goal of selling its products in foodservice venues next year.

Red to Green Podcast: How Cultured Meat is Ripe Terrain for Conspiracy Theories

Qanon. The Deep State. 5G microchip injections.

We live in a golden age of conspiracy theories. These circular reasoning belief systems once relegated to the fringes have entered the mainstream, fueled by social media, validated by politicians and celebrities and calcified by repetition and confirmation bias.

Food is no stranger to conspiracy theories. Whether it’s worries about GMOs being used to hurt our health, that KFC breeds mutant chickens or that there was once a great fondue cheese cartel (or wait, that one’s true), these food conspiracy theories are just as pernicious and persistent as those that plague politics.

And here’s the problem: we’re only getting started. As we move forward into the world where more and more of our calories are from impressive and hard to fathom technology, it’s safe to say we say we’ll likely see many more food-based conspiracy theories.

All of which is why found this conversation Red to Green’s Marina Schmidt had with Dr. Daniel Jolley, a professor from the UK who researches conspiracy theories and their impact, so fascinating. Schmidt and Jolley go deep on how future food, particularly cultured meat, is an area that is ripe for conspiracy theories. And, as discussed by Schmidt and Jack Bobo in the previous episode, this means that the companies behind this new food need to think seriously about preparing for a polarized world where they need to work hard to counter false beliefs about their product.

You can listen to the full conversation here, download it on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, or read the transcript of the conversation below.

Marina Schmidt

Yes, finally, conspiracy theories. What an interesting topic, while we do focus on the term conspiracies, the basic principles we talk about also apply to the questions. How do we convince skeptics? How do we engage in communication? How should we deal with issues like fake news that will arise? Once cultured meat gets the attention of mainstream media more and more. There hasn’t been much researched on, on conspiracy theories until recently. And professor Daniel jolly from whom you will hear today is one of the people leading this field.

He’s a senior lecturer in the department of psychology at  North Umbria university in the UK, his research focuses on the consequences of conspiracy theories and has been featured on BBC in the New York times, the guardian financial times, Huffington post, et cetera, et cetera. In 2020 to date, his media engagement has had an estimated reach of 1 billion people.

I haven’t seen the topic of cultured meat, conspiracies discussed anywhere else in such detail. So I’m excited for you to listen in. Let’s jump right in.   

Daniel, it’s really lovely to have you on red to green.

Dr. Daniel Jolley

Absolute pleasure. Thanks for the invite.

Marina Schmidt

You know, oftentimes people, when I talk to them about conspiracy theories in the field, some say, well, why would you care about what’s some weird people talk about in their niches, but then at the same time, it seems that conspiracy theories have become way more widespread. What would you respond to that?

Dr. Daniel Jolley

I think that it’s a good stereotype and a good mix of separation. And indeed that was the perception may 10, 15 years ago, where it was suggested that only a small number of people believed in conspiracies and they were on the fringes of society. They had no impact in essence, but actually polls have demonstrated that they are widespread.

In the UK, 60% of people believe at least one conspiracy. Similar findings have been found in America. So this is a significant body of people who are subscribing to the viewpoints, where they believe in that there’s peripheral groups that they’re doing something sinister.

And typically they’re believe something sinister to do with a large event or large issue. So it could be to do with climate change, could to do with vaccines and COVID to do with COVID 19. So that one group is conspiring against the other.

So in essence, what you find is that when people are drawn to these viewpoints, they can actually change how they act in the world. Because of course, if you believe that climate change is a hoax and it’s not happening. Why would you reduce your carbon footprint? If you believe that vaccines are dangerous because doctors or nurses cover up the dangers to make a profit, why would you vaccinate?

And particularly it’s very prominent right now with, of course the COVID-19 vaccine. Again, if you think it’s all a hoax or you think that so many, the sentence too is going on, you are less likely to want to vaccinate yourself.  But of course, the basis is not in truth. These things are not true. COVID-19 is happening.

Climate change is happening. Vaccines are safe. They will help us be COVID 19. These are things that are based in facts. If people for different reasons, going down the line of, ‘well they’re dangerous X, Y, and Z’… that could impact the smooth running of society. It could impact how me and you engage.

And of course, cultured meat is a new field. It is something that even me personally, I’m still learning about, but it has all of the key ingredients of conspiracy beliefs to flourish. And we can obviously get into that during this podcast, but it certainly, to me, looking from the outset, potential flourishing ground for these narratives to really develop.

Marina Schmidt

Yeah, definitely. And that’s exactly why I wanted to talk to you because that aligns with my beliefs about the field. I think it’s quite exciting that right now we are witnessing the emergence of a completely new product category. When I talked to some people from the field about it, I sometimes get the response ‘any press is good press.’

Do you think that’s true?

Dr. Daniel Jolley

Hmm. So we know with conspiracy theories that once people are exposed to them, they can be very resistant to correction. And also they can be very influential, straight away. They can impact us without us realizing. I mean by that is research has shown that when you’re exposed to this, these narratives, it makes you think differently about that event, whilst it wouldn’t impact your behaviors immediately, of course, because you need to digest information, it takes a bit of a time for you to actually impact your behavior.

For example, you vaccinate, or whether you use that product, t it would initially make you more skeptical towards that product. It will change your opinion towards it. Arguably, a one-time exposure on a Twitter feed is probably going to have a minimal impact. It will probably  fade away.

But of course, prolonged exposure where you find yourselves, maybe in a Twitter algorithm or on the YouTube trending page where there’s different recommended videos, you may find yourself in essence, in a bit of a rabbit hole. Where you you’re then be recommended similar videos. That, of course, will then reaffirm that, that prior belief and suddenly your belief may indeed then become much more resistant to change.

And as we see with social media, interesting research recently highlighted that Amazon books also play along along with algorithms. Whereby if you were searching about cultured meat or the myths around that, I suspect there will be recommended books or articles that may be a bit more conspiratorial.

The caveat is it’s just not one post. It’s stuff over a period of time. It’s not just that you read one thing and suddenly you’re a changed person. That, of course, isn’t true. It’s that prolonged exposure that I think is more problematic.

Marina Schmidt

Yes. And also how it fits into all of the previous information that has been propagated. I mean, partially that’s actually an interesting point that was raised in our episode four with Jack Bobo. You’re saying that, by attacking the animal agriculture industry for being sinister, for having toxic ingredients in their meats or for not following regulation, eit undermines the trust in the food system. Ironically, which may over the long term hurt the cultured meat industry or the alternative protein space overall. So how would you see the cultured meat conspiracies fitting in with macro trends before that? For example, the overall distrust in the quality of food, et cetera?

Dr. Daniel Jolley

it’s a good question.  in essence, it’s all going back to that distrust of biomedical therapies, which of course is slightly different here, but of course it’s science-based and it’s science driven. I mean, know that people who believe in conspiracies favor the alternatives, they favor herbals, they favor organic foods herbal supplements.They pull back from vaccines.

In general, if you believe people that are involved in plots and schemes in general, in the world, you are likely to believe in multiple types of conspiracies. So typically someone who believes that the climate change isn’t happening are also susceptible to believe that vaccines are dangerous, that the Americans didn’t go to the moon, that potentially cultured meat.

Is actually some kind of conspiracy to kind of  change the world population. Or it’s dangerous, or that it’s made to make profits.

So  with the modified food. A poll a few years ago found that actually  12% of people believed  in the conspiracy that (GMOs) are being used to shrink the world population. Only 19% have actually heard of that conspiracy previously.

If you think of other kind of medical conspiracies, but for example, that governments are hiding the cure for cancer as a way to keep making profits. 63% of the sample had heard of that conspiracy, where 37% of those people believed in it. So just from that example  of the modified food, this area is not as widely heard of. People aren’t aware of these things occurring. And of course this isn’t even asking about culture of meat. So I suspect if we can kind of predict the future a couple of years where cultured meat is more in our mainstream.

So I’m thinking when it’s mentioned on the news more regularly, when it’s something that we can see and actually pick up in supermarkets, I think there’ll be much more of uptake with people being skeptical of that food because they believe in an essence of conspiracy beliefs.

Marina Schmidt

Yeah. In a previous interview, I think it was episode two of the season with Isha Datar, we mentioned this uptake curve. So you have the early adopters and then you have at getting into the mainstream and you have the laggards, et cetera. And it’s this bell shaped curve, somewhat of increasing adoption. And I’m wondering how you would see this, considering that once things reach the mainstream, there tends to be an uptake in negative press and criticism and fake news potentially. So how do you see this bell curve actually being shaped?

Dr. Daniel Jolley

Well, when I think about  this area, I can see similarities with technology advancements. So thinking of 5G. 5G is a very topical thing to be talking about, and there are a whole range of misinformation, fake news and conspiracy theories.

With COVID-19. there was an uptake in people believing that COVID was caused by 5G.  And then that then led to people trying to set a light to these 5G towers because they thought if they could stop the 5G towers, then that would stop COVID.

So for me, I’m seeing kind of similarities here with potentially the emergence of that technology. And I think potentially people listening now could learn from the communication strategies of people in the phone industry, from the governments trying to tackle misinformation with 5G that is still ongoing.

I think from my perspective, it was a very kind of similar journey with this that they (wireless carriers) thought, ‘Oh, it’ll be fine. We’ll just put X and information to say what 5G is, what 4G is, what 3G is, and that will be fine. People will just be happy with that.

But of course it’s been demonstrated that that is just not true. That when people have these suspicions of the government of people in power, that they’re hesitant to engage in these new technologies.

Thinking back to, 1900’s where Spanish flu came, people thought it was due to the telephone. That it was a telephone that was causing this flu. So these kind of links with trying to understand the issues because events are always kind of comes from some kind of advancement, something that the government is potentially trying to roll out.

So I think with this. Potentially, it could be a very similar tactic being used in that people may think it will be taken on automatically when that actually might not be true. So for me, it’s thinking about what can we learn from the 5g roll out now?  I’ve seen so many great campaigns, for example, in Australia, where I think it was Vodafone were having in essence  misinformation campaigns to try and highlight 5G doesn’t cause COVID in essence. So potentially trying to prebunk people’s misperceptions about this meat and, in essence, trying to highlight the positives. If there are any criticisms, to try and tackle that to try and be up front with that, to try and highlight.  how this meat has, of course, has been developed, because of course that would be a question.

People wouldn’t go about people wonder is it safe? So I think by being able to work through and see good practice from other things that I’ve unfortunately had a very similar journey, I think will be really positive.

Marina Schmidt

Hm. Interesting. I feel that in our industry information is seen as the great balm to nervous minds. So when in doubt, just throw information on it or educate people. Once people understand the technology, once they understand the facts, then they obviously will like it. And once they try it.

In another interview of the season, we touched upon how GMOs actually got a bad one reputation by the companies over-communicating. The big safety measures they’re using. Publishing these long form papers, describing the technology and risk assessments and digital data. And that was again on the spectrum of over-communicating making people wonder, well, if you need to publish all that stuff, it seems to be quite dangerous.

So it’s, so counter-intuitive, it’s fascinating how irrational this is.  So where do we strike the balance between we need to be upfront with what we’re talking about, but also then if we talk too much ourselves about the potential dangers and risks, and also arguments against cultured meat, then we are drawing attention to these things?

Dr. Daniel Jolley

Hmm. I think what you raised there is this, the science communication and how it really needs to be targeted to the particular audience where the average person is unlikely to sit through and read a 20 page risk assessment, because not only is that quite dry material for any, most of every everyone, it’s not going to be motivated to read that instead, it needs to be a much more accessible.

Fun, arguably humorous way to get them engaged in the content. So the example I mentioned earlier  with 5g and Vodafone. These adverts are shorter, they’re engaging. They were fun to watch, but they were also informative they’re in essence, using humor as a way to educate.

So people were therefore engaged to learn about this topic. Of course, if people wanted to learn more about the Pacifics that can exist as well. In essence, potentially  the campaign is to have multiple passage to it where you’ve got the more public facing, engaging content that in essence can.

Demystify some of the, fake news based around  that particular area. And also then more the scientific where they can go through the risk assessments or indeed whatever it is.

The majority of people would not engage in conspiratorial thinking about this particular issue. It would just be a small arguably minority who are more susceptible to engage in this type of thinking. So it’s trying to work out how detrimental could that be?  the NHS in the UK.

Put a campaign about vaccines AIDS, but in the comments on their Facebook or on their Twitter feed are then conspiratorial. So you’ve then got, you’ve even got the concern of, well, do we, as the organization or the charity or whatever it is, respond to those comments or do we ignore those comments?

Problem with responding is you’re then given. Light to these issues and you’re debating,  that particular point. If you ignore other people are then reading the comments and they’re seeing that those are being ignored. So does that mean that it’s true or false? So I think potentially how the campaigns that Harvest had the strategy comes deals with those types of situations is something that we need to kind of understand and.

I know from some people that I spoke to, they, when they have those comments, they try and respond privately to those people and to try and offer Cantu arguments and try and discuss with them that by that particular issue to do the vaccine or whatever it is.

But of course that’s problematic in its own, right as well.  And then in essence has been aware of that coming and thinking of ways to try and catch argumented.

So, yeah. Do you go ahead and you pre booked some of these myths and then potentially people who are then commenting, you know, with conspiratory narratives, you then can link to videos linked to infographics that explain  what has happened or indeed under the root. 

Marina Schmidt

In one of the other interviews of you, I remember you were talking about the issue that conspiracy theories. An overall negative controversial press has a POL it’s attention driving, and to be able to contract that we need to possibly create storylines and narratives that are even more engaging, even more interesting.

And. I mean we do focus on conspiracy theories, but when we talk about that, I always also think about just overall our media landscape and how journalism has become so attention driven, like quick attention driven, as we know, bad news sells more than good news. for example, from talking to people in the field, I’ve heard that even if they would talk to journalists and send them.

Nice pictures and tell them how to talk about it. So not call it Frankenstein meat, not call it lab ground, but call it cultured or cultivated meat. The end result would be the magazine, especially the mainstream outlets, publishing the stuff that gets people more anxious and angry. So do you have any best practices of how to deal with that?

Dr. Daniel Jolley

That’s a good point because of course we know in general that anxiety and anger can breed conspiratorial thinking, because in essence, when you have those feelings, you’re trying to make sense of that particular issue with that particular topic or that event. And by believing that conspiracy, Oh, it’s the government always doctors or whatever it is, can at least.

Try and make me feel less anxious, could try and make you feel less threatened. So potentially an article that presents this area in that particular way, may indeed drive the conspiratorial narratives. So I think as you say back to the point, is it, the communication strategy potentially is really important as a way to ensure that the language that is being used, is it going to breed conspiratory beliefs?

Because of course, people may already be coming into this area. A bit intrigued, but also it’s skeptical of  how will this work? How is it being designed? Is it safe? Which of course are legitimate questions to ask. They are questions. I’m sure we will all ask. It comes conspiratorial.

Of course, when you have those questions, but then you think, wow, it’s, it’s some kind of government conspiracy. They’re trying to make money wherever they say, well, it’s all part of the conspiracy. And then they, in essence, you discredit any evidence and you stick to your prior beliefs. So potentially  people ask questions with different motives in a way.

And of course  fake news is different to conspiratorial beliefs because, so it could just be fake. And not conspiratorial. It could suggest, you know, that this, this meat has to be made by doing weird to it.

I think an example, but do sit with there isn’t someone covering something up, which of course will be really a payment to someone and potentially someone who’s feeling anxious. They also pick up this as well. So I think it’s been trying to be clear with what this is. And has to be developed and in essence, dry and pre bunk, some of the, of the deceptions.

So it could be potentially just, they get out loud, like have a good focus group with people to talk about their concerns or their questions and potentially to see, well, okay. How widespread are these questions? Could we try and preempt some of these questions? We’ve some potentially engaging PR or indeed conversations.

Marina Schmidt

Hmm. A lot of that is inherently logical. I’ve heard you stayed in a different interview. Conspiracy theories are inherently logical. Also when people believe in fake news,    there’s also this pattern of, I don’t believe any mainstream media. So I believe this single block on the internet that has all the answers.

Dr. Daniel Jolley

Yeah.

Marina Schmidt

The tricky thing is that the reason for these beliefs is so entirely irrational. So how do you address that? Can you fix that even with logic? 

Dr. Daniel Jolley

So people who are already skeptical of biomedical therapies in general, Maybe would be skeptical of these type of new technology in essence, because there were believe that the scientists have doing something shady behind the scenes.

And in essence, it is all down to that high status power person or group rather who kind of supports this viewpoint. So, so we trusted research found that a biomedical therapy that will supported by a low power source or seemed to be quite favorable. But as soon as that same therapy was supported by a high power source, favorability dropped the floor.

So in essence, it was the power source, who was the one influence in that belief. In essence, whether . high power source was, seemed to be conspiratorial or dots. So potentially if a Revit of stakeholders are talking about cultured meat, not just the government, but for more low power sources. So I think your charity secret people who haven’t necessarily got a vested interest in this area.

They indeed, maybe more trustworthy, but I think for that bit of research that could demonstrate that actually,  is it really biomedical? That is the issue or is it the power source who’s supported that particular approach is that the issue potentially, and by having a much more larger stakeholders involved in the communication, we be able to get a more diverse range of people involved in that area.

But I’ve always found that research really interested in how that same product could be viewed very differently, depending on who supports it.

Marina Schmidt

That’s quite interesting. You spark the idea in me that maybe especially in the cultured meat space, there’s an opportunity to tell founders stories because it does come not from the corporations, which makes it different from the GMO case. But it does come from a lot of individuals that come together aligned around.

Values like animal ethics, environmental concerns.  a belief in innovation and improving the world. Right?  there’s an opportunity to build trust, not by arguing through hard facts, but by arguing. for stories.  over the millennia. we have been passing on information through powerful stories . regarding the connection between conspiracy and and science. In episode four Jack Bobo argued that companies should not use science in there. Product argumentation because science is inherently polarizing and it will drive away a certain part of the population instinctively.

And then I also talked to Rafa, who is the CEO often alternative dairy company called formo who argued that in their communication, they focus on science on the one hand. It is because they are addressing early doctors. but. In a broader scheme. He believes people don’t trust science, that’s something he wants to change.

So he wants to communicate. science is awesome. Look at what science can enable. What do you think about these two viewpoints?

Dr. Daniel Jolley

I think it’s really interesting. I suppose it makes me think about COVID-19 of course. And the head of vaccine has been talked about in science communication, whereby there’s been at least in the UK, a lot of push trying to understand. The how the vaccine have been developed and at the start lots of questions about, well, how has it been developed so quickly and understand which of course were not conspiratorial.

It was just legitimate questions, which then scientists were then going games. And for example, using their own Twitter feeds to explain in essence how that vaccine was developed and then got the NHS staff talking about the success of the vaccine and how they’re seeing the impact in the hospitals. So I think potentially that science communication where it’s directed and trying to make it accessible, I think is really good.

Of course, when you’ve then got it much more complex. So we mentioned earlier about releasing folder where you’ve got. Tired is a page as any arguably of different risk assessments that we’re not missing, that you can digest potentially it’s both. If it gives someone that sort of information, they may push back on it because they just don’t understand it.

And then they may indeed think, well,  what do we need or this? if someone was to send a journal article to me from, you know, a cell background where it’s the.

This is the science of how this meat is formed. I wouldn’t understand it. I wouldn’t want to understand it, but instead, and much more interactive seminar interactive, video, something on YouTube, even just using the platform Tik Tok to communicate in a very, more accessible, fun way will be really dynamic to, of course, that kind of reminds me as well is when we’re thinking about communication, you thinking about  the adults, but we’ve also got young people.

These arguably the young people are the ones who are going to be using this type of technology. They’re going to be using this type of meat, which means that maybe each targeting communication towards your groups.  So by trying to demystify, and even from the early stage, he’s targeting teenagers could be a really interesting marketing strategy whereby.

We know from research that I’ve done recently, that age 14 seems to be a peak time for  young people to believe in conspiracy theories. Because at 14 it’s, when people are relying less on their family, that they can walk to their friends are really, that’s where they can get a social media account age 12, 13, it’s where people are relying less on their emotional regulation and much more relying just on the emotions. So in essence, they’re not thinking about how they’re feeling that was kind of acting, which means that the anxiety, the threat, the uncertainty, trying to look to see what others are doing, can make them more susceptible, to believe in conspiracies.

And I think it’s good to communicate science. It’s just making sure you communicate science in a very accessible way, such as podcasts like this.

Marina Schmidt

Yeah.  the topic is so vast and I think we’ve touched not just on conspiracy theories. We also talked about fake news. I think another topic that will be important is crisis communication. There will be a point in time at which something will go wrong. And some company will have a mishap and then the media will be all over it, covering it in depth.

And I think an important part of the discussion is that consumer adoption and consumer acceptance is not a linear progression. So people start eating things and they stop eating things that can change their mind once they try it, it doesn’t mean that they are one over. And they’re going to continue only eating cell cultured meat.

The thing, another thing that’s really nerves me as I, as I’m thinking about these topics is with no GMO and no gluten and no soy.  it’s such a phrasing question because suddenly soy becomes something that is inherently bad or gluten becomes something that’s inherently bad because why would you otherwise buy products where there’s a label of no soy, no gluten.

Right. and it’s all these small, psychological influences that will accumulate into. How much impact this field is going to have over the longterm.  if we want to have a big impact, we want to have the majority of people switch to alternatives in a way from conventional agriculture products.

So lots, lots of things to talk about.  what other case studies or examples would you recommend to listeners to look into, to learn about how to address conspiracy theories, fake news or crisis community?

Dr. Daniel Jolley

So there’s actually quite a bit of literature that has come out of COVID-19 because eight speed, a flourishing van for conspiracy narratives, because in essence, it has all the key ingredients for why conspiracy theories, flourish, anxiety, that 4s join uncertainty big event, which means that they’ve been on a lot of interests.

But I think what we are learning is that it’s a challenge. And that, of course, people who have these beliefs, they really hold onto them. They, they come. That’s social identity, which means that people are motivated to defend their beliefs and they would engage in dialogue to defend them.

So potentially it’s thinking about ways that we have a much more productive conversation with someone. And it’s not a case of going in and saying, you’re writing home, you’re writing over wrong. That’s the only way you’re wrong. And I’m right. It is going in and trying to have a conversation is trying to understand why did that person have those particular polices start with, why do they believe?

For example, if, if they do, if they really cultured meat is some kind of conspiracy to make profit, why do they think that, Oh, then and dry and kind of. Tease apart, some of their psychology, is it all based in anxiety that they’ve all read about what they eat potentially? Are they just trying to offer some kind of reassurances to themselves about the world, the world that they live in?

And of course, it’s also promoting people to think more critically about the information they digest, where for me on personal level, I try and think about the emotional reaction that I have to things. So, as I mentioned previously, if I, when I read something and I feel really angry or really happy by reading it, it’s worth thinking, do I have this reaction?

Because it’s true because I just like what it says.  it’s biomedical, it’s biomedical therapy. Ish. It’s obviously at the same thing, of course, but it’s very much in the same pot in my view. And of course, people who believe in conspiracy theories push back on that.

And so I suspect there will be a similar pushback on this competence.

Marina Schmidt

Yeah, interesting side note, the GMOs for example, are more accepted in a biomedical setting than they are in a food setting. So people tend to be even more queasy about anything that is in their food and that they consume on a regular basis. to get to some of the ending questions, if you would have 50 million in what businesses, what you invested in or in what initiatives.

Dr. Daniel Jolley

So I suppose, because I’m really interested, biased in fake news can split theories with information. I think it’s trying to develop different strategies to help people think more critically. So of course, it’s that balance of wanting to make sure people can ask questions. And to question everything, but to be able to have the skill sets, to think through what they are being exposed to.

Having children’s schools think through evidence and be able to give them the skill sets. There could be really useful, in essence, do studies to work out what is the best way to intervene.  Regarding food, sustainability or agriculture. What is an unusual opinion that you hold that many people would disagree with?  I felt like I’ve learned a lot by engaging in this podcast. I didn’t really know much of a cultured meat really  it’s kind of bypass me a little bit, and that’s why I talked about at the start that I think. These are the kind of the key ingredients for a conspiracy theory to blue in the future when it comes more mainstream, when people are more aware of this area, because let’s say even me, who’s tensely a bit more aware because of my research area wasn’t really tapped into it.

That’s probably why I’ve not really got anything controversial to say, because I don’t really know about it. Maybe that’s controversial. It’s on, right? The fact that I’m a guest here and I’m learning, you know, through the process.

Marina Schmidt

Daniel how can listeners connect with you?

Dr. Daniel Jolley

So they can find me on Twitter @DrDanielJolley, or they can just search in Google and you’ll find my website or videos or anything else that I’ve suggested.

Marina Schmidt

It was really, really interesting to talk to you. Very insightful and very happy. We got to discuss this topic.

Dr. Daniel Jolley

Pleasure. Thank you.

South Korea: Seawith Uses Algae for Serum and Scaffolding in Cultured Meat

It’s been a banner year so far for cultured meat. In addition to all of the funding that’s been flowing into the space since the start of 2021, there is also a growing number of startups from around the world attacking the issues of creating cell-based meat in unique ways.

The latest such startup to come to our attention is South Korea’s Seawith, which is leveraging algae to differentiate itself from other cultured meat players. The company uses algae to replace the fetal bovine serum (FBS) that has historically been used as a growth medium for cells. FBS is expensive and controversial, so most cell-based meat startups we cover are developing technologies that don’t require it. But Seawith is also using algae as a scaffolding to grow meat, which the company says yields thicker “cuts” of meat.

Following is a brief Q&A conducted via email with Heejae Lee, CTO of Seawith, who provides a little more insight into the company and what it is creating. Answers have been lightly edited for clarity.

1.) What makes Seawith different from other cell-based meat companies?
Seawith has the distinction of making the world’s first perfect steak at a price similar to slaughter meat. Based on algae engineering technology, it has replaced most of the bovine serum, which accounts for more than 90 percent of the cost of culturing meat, and the cell culture scaffold technology can make cultured meat thicker than 1cm.

2.) What makes algae so useful in creating cell-based meat?
The key principle of cultured meat is that one muscle cell takes nutrients and synthesizes them to make large meat. Algae is rich enough to be used as a nutritional supplement, which allows efficient cell culture by supplying it to cells. Also, algae are one of the most abundant resources on Earth, and they have the advantage of being cheap and available everywhere because they can grow anywhere with water and sunlight.

3.) Where are you at with your product right now?
We just finished our research and held a cultured meat tasting event. Cultured meat made with Korean bovine cells was evaluated well by attendees, who said it had the taste and aroma of beef, and the texture of meat could be seen. Currently, it is a muscle-only culture, but we are preparing various features such as taste of fat cells. We are preparing to get permission to produce enough to supply large quantities of products to restaurants by 2023.

4.) What types of cell-based meat will you be creating?
Seawith is making beef steak. There are many different types of meat, but the reason why we are making
difficult steaks is that only the technology we have can implement them. After perfecting the texture of muscle tissue, we plan to develop various meat products such as chicken, pig, and fish as well as meat products and animal feed.

5.) What is your timeline to bring your product to market?
We are currently discussing with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety to make a trial sale in Korea with the aim of
launching a restaurant at the end of 2022. To this end, we are planning an urban cultured meat factory and will introduce a minimum production model by 2021. From 2023, we are preparing for local tasting event and product launch in different locations such as North America and Singapore.

MeaTech 3D Files a Patent for Printing More Cultivated Meat

Bioprinting startup MeaTech 3D has filed a patent with the United States Patent Office (USPTO) it says could significantly improve the manufacturing process for its cultivated meat.

The Ness Ziona, Israel-based company has since 2018 been developing a method for cultivated meat that relies on 3D bioprinting. Cells are extracted from the animal (without harming it) and transferred to bioreactors, where they multiply before getting differentiated into different cell types, such as fat and muscle. That process is, with some variation, akin to just about any company developing cultivated meat right now.

Where MeaTech’s method starts to differ is when the bio-inks come into play. The bio-inks are formed from the cell types mentioned above, like muscle and fat, and scaffolding material, which provides structural support cells can adhere to as they grow and mature. Once the inks are loaded into a 3D bioprinter, they are printed to, in MeaTech’s own description, “assemble cells as they would be found in a conventional cut of muscle.” The printed product is incubated to form tissue and eventually become a full cut of meat that goes to the consumer. 

Needless to say, nobody’s buying full cuts of steak from MeaTech on store shelves at the moment. The company has so far only printed a carpaccio-like layer of meat, which is considerably thinner than a ribeye-sized cut of meat. It will likely be years before the latter emerges as an actual product, though MeaTech has recently announced a pilot production facility that will help in this process.

The company’s main competitor in this area is Aleph Farms, also based in Israel. Earlier this year, Aleph said it had developed a 3D-printed ribeye cultivated steak. Elsewhere, however, many cultivated meat companies continue to focus on unstructured meat like grounds, nuggets, and patties.

MeaTech says the patent filed for this week will give the company more control during the printing process, increase printing speeds, and allow for a greater variety of inks. The end goal, of course, is to improve the manufacturing process overall in order to get the company closer to making whole cuts of meat. 

  

Magic Valley Wants to Bring Cultivated Lamb to Market in a Couple Years

Australian cultivated meat company Magic Valley this week proclaimed itself “the world’s first cultured lamb company” and provided some details on what it’s been up to since its recent launch. The company is currently in prototype stage and in the process of raising seed funding.

As a meat choice, lamb stands out in a world where the majority of cultivated meat companies are busy making beef, chicken, and pork analogues. In the U.S., lamb consumption has been on the decline since the 1960s, though consumption worldwide is actually expected to rise slightly. Growth is predicted to be the highest in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

Lamb production is similar to other forms of livestock production in terms of the land and water resources required to supply demand. Cultivated lamb, created by taking cells from a lamb and growing them in a nutrient-rich medium, addresses the problem of resources when it comes to developing a more sustainable end product. Magic Valley says it uses pluripotent stem cells, otherwise known as “master cells” that can create endless copies of themselves. The company does not use Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS), the expensive and highly controversial growth medium many cultivated meat companies are moving away from at this point. 

To start, the Melbourne-based company said that its focus for now is on developing cultivated lamb products, including mince, strips, steaks, and, and chops. 

Lamb is typically more expensive to buy than chicken or beef, so one major challenge for Magic Valley (and any other company hoping to develop a cultivated version) will be reaching price parity with that traditional lamb meat. There is also the ever-present question of what happens to the livelihoods of livestock producers if and when cultivated meat scales enough to feed global consumers en masse. Some have argued that traditional meat producers are actually a critical part of the evolution of cultivated meat, and that these groups could invest in bioreactors to grow meat right on the farm, becoming hybrid farmers of traditional and cultivated meat.

Answers to some of those questions are yet a long ways off. Nearer term, most cultivated meat companies are just trying to get to market in some capacity. Magic Valley has no direct competitors right now, since it’s the only known company currently developing cultivated lamb. However, another Australian company, Vow, specializes in “exotic” cultured meats and is currently amassing a cell library that includes everything from water buffalo to kangaroo. Lamb may very well end up in that cell library one of these days. 

Magic Valley, meanwhile, hopes to complete its prototype and have products on shelves within one to two years.

Transcript: Excerpts From a Recent Conversation With Eat Just’s Josh Tetrick

By “in the future,” he didn’t mean next year. Anyone who keeps an eye on the cultivated meat industry knows there are many, many hurdles to leap before we’re eating cultivated Big Macs. For companies actually making the products and/or accompanying technologies, there’s still much to do around improving growth media, bioprocess design, and many other things. And, of course, more companies must get regulatory approval to sell in more countries.

Nonetheless, the aforementioned shift towards cultivated meat is happening. Restaurants are a major part of that process, as is the task of educating consumers about what cultivated meat actually is (“It doesn’t taste like meat. It is meat”) and why the heck we need it in the first place.

Spoon Plus subscribers can read the transcript of my conversation with Tetrick below. And if you missed our weekly newsletter discussing the topic, go here to read the web version of it.

Delivery Has a Small But Vital Role When it Comes to Normalizing Cultivated Meat

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Setting aside scalability, price parity, and regulatory approvals for a moment, one of the major challenges for cultivated meat makers will be getting people to actually buy their products en masse and on a regular basis.

We’ve written before about restaurants being a critical step in this journey, and after this week, I would add restaurant delivery to that process, too. The industry-wide shift to delivery wrought by the pandemic forced the restaurant biz to get pretty creative in terms of what it can do with delivery. Similar energy could be put towards delivering consumers an entire education about cultivated meat, not just a meal in a box.

There’s currently only one company in the world that’s even allowed to sell cultivated meat in restaurants right now — Eat Just, which nabbed the first-ever regulatory approval to sell cultivated meat at the end of 2020 and subsequently started selling its GOOD chicken product at Singapore restaurant 1880. The San Francisco-based Eat Just has since struck a deal with Delivery Hero’s food panda service to deliver meals from 1880. This week, Eat Just announced (among other things) that it is doing something similar with JW Marriott Singapore South Beach’s Madame Fan restaurant. To start, GOOD chicken dishes will only be available from Madame Fan with delivery orders.

When I talked to Eat Just’s CEO Josh Tetrick this past week, he was admittedly a little more blasé about delivery than I’m being at the moment: “It just was kind of as simple as, ‘It’d be nice if people could eat meat without slaughter in their homes. So let’s do delivery.'” Delivery Hero happens to be an investor in Eat Just, and food panda happens to be one of Asia’s biggest delivery services. Those convenient factors made delivery something of a no-brainer for the company to pursue.

But Tetrick also pointed out that delivery is part of the overall process of getting cultivated meat out of the lab and onto our plates. “Start with regulatory approval,” he said. “Then it’s getting on a menu. Then it’s having a family sit down and have a chicken dinner together. Then you can go to a retailer and buy [it]. All these things create a context in which this idea of making meat — which seemed like it was some futuristic thing a year ago — suddenly becomes a way that people just eat meat.”

Restaurants have historically played a role in the evolution of what we eat. But thanks to the forces at work, both technological and pandemic-related, restaurants are no longer just in-person experiences between the four walls of a dining room. If there was one idea that’s been dissected ad infinitum over the last year, it’s that the word “restaurant” now encompasses a far wider range of experiences. One of the biggest is delivery.

The pandemic accelerated rather than created delivery’s popularity, which means as a meal format, it won’t go by the wayside anytime soon. Numbers may taper off a bit as the world reopens, but many consumers have already said they will continue to order delivery on a regular basis. That makes it an integral part of the restaurant industry that anyone looking to enter the biz needs to pay attention to. Like cultivated meat companies.

If we go by the example Eat Just/GOOD have set, that involves more than putting some lab-grown chicken bites in a cardboard box. Tetrick said that delivery for the Madam Fan deal will operate similar to what his company did with its original 1880/food panda deal. Customers can choose from a few different dishes (chicken and rice, katsu curry, etc.). Meals are delivered to customers along with a Google Cardboard viewer and a link to a 360-degree short film about meat. Tetrick described the film as follows:

“You you put the glasses on and you’re in the midst of a rain forest in South America. Then it transitions to the rain forests being removed, and you see that it’s connected to planting lots of soy and corn. And you see how the soy and corn is connected to feed going to animals, and you see how that’s connected to your plate and how we could do something different.”

The point is to help consumers familiarize themselves with the term “cultivated meat” and explain why it matters for the health of the plant (more food made with fewer resources) and how that big-picture context fits into each individual consumer’s life, whether they’re in Singapore or Tennessee.

Longer term, immersive experiences like the above could help with what’s something of an end game for cultivated meat: getting people to think of it as just meat. Not “lab-grown meat” or “slaughter-free” meat or any of the other descriptors floating around nowadays. Just regular ol’ meat from regular ol’ animals.

It’s significant, then, that Eat Just’s deal with Madame Fan will deliver cultivated meat that actually replaces its conventional counterpart on the menu. In future, says Tetrick, restaurant menus will still offer some plant-based options (for those who can’t eat animals for ethical and/or religious reasons). But in his mind, “it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to have both cultivated meat and conventional meat on the menu.”

“I think you’ll end up having restaurants all across the world transition,” he added.

Not tomorrow, mind you. As I write this, global demand for meat is up. There is also a huge difference between letting someone taste something as a one-off experience and getting them to order it on a regular basis. As more companies attempt to scale up — often to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars — they will need to start educating their prospective consumers on what the heck this stuff is and why we need it in the first place. Choosing the right restaurant partners and getting the actual chefs involved will be important for this, too, as well sending the right messaging to each different demographic.

Food delivery may be one small step in this process, but given its ubiquity right now, it’s a crucial one to get right.

Elsewhere in the Restaurant Biz . . .

Top Three Takeaways from Our Food Robotics Summit – The Spoon’s Chris Albrecht gives some thought to the future of robots, including restaurant robots, in his wrap-up from our latest event.

Take on Big Pizza by Supporting Bitcoin – An investor/entrepreneur has launched Bitcoin Pizza, a pop-up restaurant brand that will partner with independent pizza shops to deliver pies from May 22–29. Proceeds in part go towards supporting independent restaurants.

On-Demand Pay App DailyPay Raises $500M in Capital – The on-demand payment service for restaurants and retailers has secured $500 million in capital and will use it to expand to new markets.

A Spanish Dairy Company Has Launched a Startup Incubator to Help Cultured Milk Companies

Pascual Innoventures, the open innovation arm of Spanish dairy company Calidad Pascual, has launched what it says is the world’s first incubator program for cellular agriculture in the dairy industry. Dubbed Mylkubator, the program will select and work with startups hoping to change the dairy industry through the development of alternative proteins. 

The program, which is supported by investment network Eatable Adventures and technology partner CNTA, will choose up to 10 startups to join the six-month hybrid program. Either in-person or virtually (or both), companies will work with mentors and get access to Pascual’s R&D facilities to develop and test their products. 

On a high level, cultured milk is created by growing mammary gland cells in an external environment (like a bioreactor) that mimics the one found inside mammals (like a cow). Micronutrients get converted into milk, which can then be harvested and purified. The process requires expertise in a number of different areas, from cell-growth media to machine learning modules that can optimize the production process. Different types of milk, including cow’s milk and human breastmilk, can be made from this process.

To that end, novel growth media, cell-growth techniques, and improvement of cell lines are among the topics the program says it is looking to find companies. And in addition to cellular ag, startups working with fermentation-based solutions or developing applied technologies like machine learning and biorecators are also welcome to apply. 

In the realm of alternative protein, the number of well-known companies currently developing milk analogues via cellular agriculture is still pretty small, particularly in comparison to the glut of cell-based meat makers. Turtle Tree Labs and Biomilq are the most well-known companies at this point.

On the other hand, companies like Perfect Day and ReMilk make milk analogues via fermentation, a process now seen as the third-pillar of alternative protein.  

Startups working with both methods are invited to apply for Mylkubator’s program. Those chosen will get a chance to prototype, test and scale their products, in addition to meeting with mentors and potential investors. The application process is open now.