In September, the USDA opened a public comment period to solicit input about the labeling of cultivated meat products. The move was widely seen as an important step forward in the regulatory approval process for the commercial sale of cultivated meat products in the United States, which many anticipate will happen soon.
When cultivated meat finally does make it to market, it’s important that consumers know exactly what’s in the product, at least according to Eric Jenkusky. Jenkusky is the CEO of Matrix Meats, a company that makes plant-based scaffolding for alternative protein and cultivated meat products. I caught up with Jenkusky last week to talk about the cultivated meat market, the regulatory approval process, and the role he saw his company playing in all of it.
In the past year, Matrix has had contact with 50 plus companies in the cultivated meat industry, and is currently engaged with 22. It is also now offering companies a wet lab research contract, where it will assist interested cultivated meat companies with the feeding and scaffold protocols.
After a busy 2021, next year will be even busier for Matrix; according to Jenkusky, “We are looking at assisting a few companies in achieving a product, a cultivated food product with at least 50 percent cultivated cells in the paid product by quarter two of 2022.”
When cultivated meat products are unveiled by various companies, Jenkusky said an important question is never asked, “How much of this product is cultivated cells, and what type of cultivated cells are those?” For the sake of the industry’s reputation and the consumers who care about what they’re eating, transparency will be crucial. We are often shown photos are videos of different whole cuts of cultivated meat products, but the composition of these products is rarely disclosed.
As Matrix Meats works with companies to achieve a cultivated meat product, Jenkusky said, “One of the things that we plan on doing is when our product comes, is we’re going to be completely transparent to the world as to what and who we’re working with.” Although the USDA and FDA will be regulating the labeling and overseeing the production of cultivated meat products, it is currently unclear what level of transparency they will demand of these products.
About 40 percent of surveyed consumers expressed that they were afraid of lab-produced products such as cultivated meat. Fear like this often stems from not knowing or understanding what a product is made of and how it was produced. In the plant-based space, alternative meat sales may be dropping to the lack of ingredient transparency. For consumers to adopt cultivated meat, it will be critical to disclose ingredients, cell composition, and the production process.
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