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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

cell-based meat

In Texas, BioBQ is Betting on Brisket as the Next Big Thing for Cell-Based Meat

What’s next for lab-grown meat? Brisket and jerky, apparently. Thanks to an Austin, Texas-based company called BioBQ, cell-based versions of both those meats are in the works, furthering the possibilities of the kinds of proteins that can be grown in a lab versus slaughtering an animal.

Those meat choices, says cofounder and CEO Katie Kam, make sense because of her company’s location, Texas being something of a superpower when it comes to brisket. Over a recent Zoom chat, Kam and fellow cofounder Janet Zoldan said they aim to have a brisket prototype in two years. The company is actively seeking funding right now.

Kam founded BioBQ at the end of 2018. In the fall of 2019, she brought Zoldan onboard as cofounder. “I thought her research in biomedical engineering could be applied to help with the development of cell-based meat,” Kam said.

Like other lab-grown meats, BioBQ uses cells rather than the actual animal to create meat alternatives. It grows the fat, muscle and collagen cells — all components that make up a brisket — using scaffolding technology to create the layers and marbling we associate with brisket.

What makes something like brisket potentially more challenging that other types of lab-grown meat is achieving that layered structure. For that, Kam says they use a patented technology to produce prototypes of intact sheets of cells that can be stacked together. “With each sheet about two to four cell layers thick, they are working on obtaining the thickness and layered structure consumers expect for jerky and brisket,” she says.

The other major challenge for BioBQ is finding a media for growing the cells that does not use fetal bovine serum (FBS) or anything else that comes from an animal. Since FBS is harvested from bovine fetuses in pregnant cows, its use as a medium for cell-based proteins is extremely controversial (not to mention, expensive). Kam, a longtime vegan, emphasized that BioBQ does not use FBS and that the company is looking for an alternative.

Finding that alternative will help BioBQ drive down the cost of producing cell-based meat as well as make the overall process for creating protein more efficient. Bigger picture, Kam imagines a food industry that relies less on the lengthy and expensive process of raising an animal, slaughtering it, and shipping it to cities. Instead, much of our protein will be produced in labs in cities and therefore much closer to the consumer.

Plenty of others share that vision, if recent activity in the cell-based protein space is any indication. Cellular agriculture startup IntegriCulture, in particular, is working to eliminate animal-based serums like FBS through its CultNet system. Elsewhere, Mosa Meat, known for creating the world’s first lab-grown hamburger, just raised $55 million. Mission Barns is making cell-based bacon, and in Australia, a company called Vow is taste-testing cultured kangaroo and other less-common meats.

Excepting, perhaps, the kangaroo, many of these cell-based meats are easier to produce than brisket, but Kam and Zoldan welcome the challenge.

“Everybody’s telling us we chose the more difficult avenue to tackle,” Zoldan said during our chat. “But I feel that our technology is more uniquely posed to answer [that] specific challenge.”

Zoldan adds that while the pandemic may have impacted BioBQ’s ability to get back into the lab, it has also highlighted why we need alternative sources of protein and “how important it is to control what we eat.” Stories of COVID-19 outbreaks in meat-packing facilities as well as other ethical issues at those facilities has called into question our reliance on traditional protein sources. “If we really can engineer the food that we eat, we can make it healthier,” said Zoldan.

BioBQ is still a ways off from getting its product onto consumers’ plates. A major priority for the company right now is getting funding to further develop its prototype, which the company hopes to have in the next couple of years.

Mosa Meat Raises $55M for Cell-Based Burgers

Mosa Meat, the Netherlands-based company known for creating the world’s first lab-grown hamburger, announced today it has raised $55 million as part of a larger Series B round. The round was led by Blue Horizon Ventures with participation from Bell Food Group, M Ventures, and others. 

Earlier this year, the company said it had achieved a more than 80x reduction in the cost of the growth medium it uses for its lab-grown meat. That’s one heck of a reduction, considering the Mosa Meat’s original hamburger cost $325,000. The company also opened a new pilot production plant.

Especially noteworthy is that in 2019, Mosa Meat successfully removed Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS), which is both expensive and ethically controversial, from its growth medium. According to a company blog post from July, removing FBS from the medium helped bring down overall costs, which in turn gets Mosa Meat closer to achieving price parity with traditional meat. Reaching that price parity will be crucial to selling the average consumer on the idea of eating burgers and other meats grown in a lab. Achieving the right texture and taste are also critical components for cell-based meat products.

The cell-based meat category has seen a huge uptick in investment over the last several months, and for more than just burgers. IntegriCulture, a company making lab-grown foie gras, raised $7.4 million in May and got a $2.2 million grant in August. BlueNalu raised $20 million in February for its cell-based seafood. Overall, the cell-based meat category has received more than $290 million in investment for 2020.

Mosa Meat says it will use its new funds to extend its current pilot production facility, expand its team, and develop an industrial-sized production line. It will also “introduce delicious cultivated beef to consumers,” though no specific date for that is set. For now, the company said it will work with European regulators to demonstrate the safety of cell-based meat and get regulatory approval to “serve consumers in Europe who are craving change.”

IntegriCulture Awarded $2.2 Million Grant to Build New Commercial Cell Ag Facility

Yesterday, Integriculture was awarded a $2.2 million dollar grant by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), a part of the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry that supports high-risk technologies that aim to resolve social issues. 

NEDO awarded a total ¥5.77 billion ( $54.7 million USD)  to eight Japanese start-ups. With each grant comes a spot in NEDO’s Product Commercialization Alliance (PCA) program, an accelerator for start-ups expected to achieve continuous sales within three years.

IntegriCulture’s will use the money for a commercial production site for cellular agriculture projects. Earlier this year the company outlined the specifics of its CultNet System, a general-purpose, large-scale cell culture technology. The system is intended to mimic the cell-to-cell communication that happens in vivo. The grow cells (muscle, fat, connective tissue) and cells that produce growth factors in adjacent bioreactors. In theory, the technology makes it possible to culture any type of animal cell in large quantities.

The coming production site will make it possible to scale, automate and integrate quality controls into the CultNet System, according to a press release from IntegriCulture. Ultimately, the site will be the launching pad commercial scale cellular ag projects possible, starting with IntegriCulture’s own cultured foie gras expected to be in restaurants by 2021.

The PCA grant comes just after Integriculture raised a ¥800 million (~$7.4 million USD) Series A round earlier this Spring to further development of its cell-based meat and also for building the company’s first commercial-scale bioreactor.

But the goal of the CultNet System was never to exclusively produce IntegriCulture products. CEO Yuki Hanyu’s plan is to create an infrastructure that IntegriCulture clients from every sector—food, supplements, cosmetics, materials—could use to to develop and execute cell-based projects. 

Democratization of cellular agriculture has always been at the heart of Hanyu’s work. IntegriCulture was born out of the DIY cultured meat community he founded in 2015 called the Shojinmeat Project. Shojinmeat offers a step-by-guide for hobbyists who want to culture meat at home. And since IntegriCulture’s commercial scale foie gras is still a few years off, the fastest way to access to cultured meat might be growing it yourself.  

Lever VC Launches Alt-Protein Fund for Early-Stage Companies

Alt-protein-focused venture capital firm Lever VC announced this week that it has launched a new fund targeting early stage plant- and cell-based protein companies. The Lever VC Fund I currently has $23 million in capital commitments, according to a company press release. 

Lever’s partners had previously invested in Beyond Meat, Impossible, Memphis Meats, and other notable alt-protein companies. Managing Partner Nick Cooney also founded the Good Food Institute, a non-profit for alternative protein companies.

Speaking this week to Food Navigator, Cooney said Lever’s new fund is doing 20 to 25 early stage investments that have so far been between $200,000 and “close to $1m.” He added that Lever tracks alt-protein companies in a proprietary database.

“For us as a sector specialist fund, we have the ability to really look across the board to identify the companies that are exciting but also have a valuation that makes sense from a risk return perspective,” he said. 

Lever has already invested roughly $5 million across 10 companies. Those companies include TurtleTree Labs, which makes cell-cultured human breastmilk, and Mission Barns, a company that recently made headlines for its cell-based bacon. Better Meat Co., GOOD PLANet Foods, The Good Spoon, and Bond Pet Foods, Avant, Grounded, Marvelous Foods, and A Dozen Cousins.

Globally, investment in alternative protein has already reached $1.1 billion in 2020 so far, which is almost double the total investment number for all of 2019. The pandemic is partly responsible for this huge uptick in interest in the category as consumers rethink their reliance on animal-based meats and dairy items. The entire market for alternative protein is expected to grow to $17.9 billion by 2025.

Lever said in today’s press release that it will continue to invest in early-stage companies working in the alt-protein space and remains open to additional investors until the Fund’s final close.

Mission Barns to Run Curbside Taste Tests for Its Cell-Based Bacon

Bacon lovers, take note. Berkeley, CA-based Mission Barns plans to run curbside taste tests of its cell-based bacon product outside San Francisco and Oakland restaurants in August (h/t Food Navigator).

Mission Barns gets its product by combining cell-cultured pork fat grown in bioreactors with plant-based protein. To do that, the company isolates cells from the animal, in this case the pig, and puts them in a warm cultivator where they grow just as they would inside the animal. Cells are then fattened and the tissue is harvested to create the “meat” portion of Mission Barns products.

On its website, Mission Barns says its process for creating “meat” is more sustainable than conventional livestock farming in terms of land and water use as well as greenhouse gas emissions. It’s also more humane, since the animal doesn’t actually have to be slaughtered to get the cells. 

As with all meat alternatives, though, taste is what will ultimately convert many consumers. To that end, Mission Barns is looking for “bacon lovers, experts, and aficionados” for this upcoming taste test, which is the first ever from the company. Potential “tasting consultants” must fill out an application. Once accepted, participants can sample the bacon in exchange for providing feedback to Mission Barns.

The company also told Food Navigator that it is testing new products with other food companies, including “one of the largest pork producers in the world.” 

Mission Barns has competition in the bacon realm from Higher Steaks, a UK-based startup that recently announced its lab-grown prototypes for bacon and pork belly. 

Overall, cell-based meat companies have received quite a bit of funding since the pandemic started surfacing some of the uglier realities of the conventional meat industry. New Age Meats recently raised an additional $2 million for its plant-based pork, while Integriculture nabbed $7.4 million in May and BlueNalu garnered $20 million in February.

This investment activity isn’t likely to slow. For the entire alternative protein category, investment has already surpassed the $1 billion mark, with more than $290 million of that going towards cell-based meat, according to a recent report from FAIRR.

Price parity still being an issue, it will be a while yet before consumers start actually bringing home the cell-based bacon. Mission Barns upcoming taste test should tell us more about how devoted bacon fans will react to cell-based versions of their favorite meat. 

New Age Meats Raises Another $2M for Cell-Based Pork

Cultivated meat startup New Age Meats (NAM) announced today it has raised a $2 million seed extension round led by TechU Ventures. The round follows the NAM’s $2.7 million seed round from earlier this year and brings the company’s total funding to $5 million.

The Berkeley, CA company is currently developing a cell-based pork sausage and says the new funds will go towards this development. In particular, that includes bringing the price point of its product down. 

NAM will also use the funds to further build out its Food Science department, which it says is focused on getting the key attributes — taste, smell, texture, etc. — of its cell-based pork as close to the real thing as possible. On that note, the company held a taste test for its pork back in 2018 and received largely positive reviews. 

Another key element to NAM’s methods is its use of automation to optimize bioreactors and essentially grow its meat faster. Part of the new funding will go towards implementing more of this automation, as well as robotics, to speed up both the research and development processes. 

Investment in cell-based meat has already reached over $1 billion in 2020 so far, which is almost double what it was for all of 2019. Cell-based meat makes up a small-but-significant portion of that investment, and NAM’s seed extension follows funding news from BlueNalu, Integriculture, and others. 

Though the company didn’t provide a timeframe, NAM said today it plans to eventually build out a pilot facility, scale product development and production, and bring its first products to market.

FAIRR: Investment in Alternative Protein Has Already Reached $1.1B in 2020

Investment in alternative protein for the first half of 2020 is almost double what it was for the whole of 2019, according to a new report by investor network FAIRR. Between January and the beginning of July of 2020, over $907 million was invested into plant-based foods, compared to $457 for the whole of 2019. More than $290 million has been invested into cell-based meat so far in 2020. The entire market for alternative protein is expected to grow to $17.9 billion by 2025.

The U.S. is still the largest market for alt-protein, reaching almost $5 billion in sales in 2019, $1 billion of those for meat alternatives. China’s is also a huge market for alternative proteins, particularly when it comes to meat replacements. 

We’ve noted this growth frequently over the last few months, and FAIRR’s report lays out some of the main drivers behind consumers’ insatiable appetites for non-animal protein. There’s the aforementioned uptick in investment, a point supported by a recent slew of news announcements. In the last week alone, Better Meat Co. raised $1 million, Joywell Foods raised $6.9 million, and plant-based cheese company Grounded raised $1.74 million.

FAIRR also calls out the rise of plant-based seafood products and a decrease in production costs for manufacturers as market drivers, along with an increase in companies using alt-protein to diversify their product lines. Last year saw a number of major milestones that brought these issues further into the light and helped alt-protein go mainstream. For instance, Nestlé opened its own production facility for plant-based meat in May of this year. UK grocer Sainsbury’s launched its own line of plant-based products in early 2020. Meanwhile, Starbucks, KFC, and a host of other QSRs have rushed to add plant-based offerings to their menus.

Then, of course, we have the pandemic to thank for this massive uptick in demand for alternative protein. “Consumers worldwide are rethinking how they eat and what they eat amidst supply chain disruptions and public concern over the link between meat production and viral diseases,” the report states.

Across the board, investment in food tech is up since the start of the pandemic, having reached $4.8 billion in the first half of 2020 according to a report from Finistere. This too is in response to the current global health crisis.

But FAIRR also calls COVID-19 “only the latest straw on the camel’s back” when it comes to alt-proteins. Pre-pandemic, our heavy reliance on animal-based proteins was already under scrutiny because of animal supply chains’ negative impact on the environment, not to mention human health. Throw a zoonotic pathogen in there (which COVID-19 is widely believed to be), and it’s easy to see why the pandemic has accelerated the demand for animal-free protein sources.

What’s next? Cell-based protein, probably. While that sector has made up a much smaller portion of investments in the first half of 2020, those dollars are nonetheless pouring in. As the pandemic wrecks more havoc on our food system and sheds light on the importance of finding new sources of protein, expect the interest in cell-based proteins to continue its acceleration.

IntegriCulture and Shiok Meats Partner to Scale Up Production of Lab-Grown Shrimp

Cell-based meat companies Integriculture and Shiok Meats announced this week that they have officially entered into a collaboration to scale up production of the latter’s cell-based shrimp, according to Vegconomist.

For the partnership, Integriculture will provide its CultNet System, which allows other businesses to culture their own animal tissues. In this case, Shiok Meats will use the CultNet System to create shrimp cell cultures. Doing so would bring the overall cost of producing lab-grown shrimp down because the system doesn’t require animal serums, which are extremely expensive, not to mention controversial.

Dr. Sandhya Sriram, co-founder of Shiok Meats, told Vegconomist that at this point, most cell-ag companies are looking for alternatives to serum, as animal serums are “neither ethical nor sustainable.” 

IntegriCulture’s CultNet System lets cell-based meat produce bypass animal serums altogether. (This democratization of meat production is one of the reasons the company landed on our Food Tech 25 list for this year.)

Unfortunately, your average consumer won’t be able to taste this cell-based shrimp yet. The companies did not give a timeline for this cell-based shrimp, and cell-based meat in general is still some time away from landing in the consumer market. IntegriCulture has said it will launch its first product, a cell-based foie gras, in 2021. Shiok Meats did its first public taste testing, of its cell-based shrimp dumplings in the spring of 2019, but the company is still most likely three to five years out from commercializing anything.

Both companies recently raised money. Integriculture raised $7.4 million this past May. Shiok Meats raised $3 million in bridge funding at the end of June.

The cultured meat and cell-ag space overall has seen much activity of late in terms of both new funding and expanding production. Memphis Meats raised $161 million at the beginning of 2020, doubling global investment in cultured meat. BlueNalu announced in June it will expand its facilities to bring cell-based seafood to test markets. Both Turtle Tree Labs and BIOMILQ have raised money for their cultured human breastmilk. 

While we’re still a ways away from grabbing cell-based meat off our grocery store shelves (or growing it at home), the flurry of new developments and funding news in this space make clear that cell-based ag is less the stuff science fiction now and inching closer to reality.

BlueNalu Announces New, Expanded Facility to Bring its Cell-Based Seafood to Test Markets

BlueNalu, which creates cell-based seafood, announced today that it is expanding its R&D and manufacturing space with a new HQ facility in San Diego.

According to the press announcement, BlueNalu has leased 38,000 sq. feet (a six-fold increase over its current space), which will house a pilot-scale food production plant “that will be designed for the commercial production of BlueNalu’s various cell-based seafood products in its initial test markets.” It will also feature the first BlueNalu kitchen and demo space.

The space will undergo renovation with a plan to open during the second half of 2021. Once up and running it will be creating anywhere between 200 – 500 pounds of its cell-based seafood per week to be sold to restaurants and other food outlets in test markets.

BlueNalu is working on a number of cell-based fish products including mahi mahi, red snapper, tuna and yellowtail. The company did a public culinary demo of its yellowtail at the end of last year. BlueNalu has plans for an even bigger, 150,000 sq. foot facility to be opened in the next five years that is capable of making 18 million pounds of cell-based seafood a year.

There are a few companies currently racing to bring their cell-based seafood to market. Wild Type does salmon while Shiok Meats does crustaceans. BlueNalu is focusing on finfish, and says that its different from other players in the market in that its product can be prepared raw, cooked multiple ways (seared, grilled, fried, etc.), as well as through acidification (ceviche, for example).

Getting this facility up and running will be an important step in BlueNalu’s path to commercialization. Products in R&D are one thing, but getting to scale and price parity with traditional animal-based seafood will be critical to its long-term success.

IntegriCulture Raises $7.4M for Cell-based Meat Development

Cellular agriculture startup Integriculture has raised a ¥800 million (~$7.4 million USD) Series A round to further the development of its cell-based meat, according to AgFunder News. The round was led by AgFunder, Beyond Next Ventures, Hiroshima Ventures, Hiroshima Venture Capital, NH Foods, Real Tech Fund, and VU Venture Partners. It also included participation from several other investors, including Caygan Capital CEO Naruhisa Nakagawa. This brings IntegriCulture’s total funding to date to ¥1.1 billion, or about $10.2 million USD.

The company will use the new funds for further research and development around its cell-based meat and also for building a production facility and the company’s first commercial-scale bioreactor. 

Integriculture’s first edible product will be its cell-based foie gras, which is grown in a bioreactor rather than in, well, an animal, thereby eliminating the ethical issues surrounding foie gras. Last year, company CEO Yuki Hanyu told my colleague Catherine Lamb that it plans to launch the cultured liver in restaurants by 2021 and in retail by 2023.

Hanyu is also the founder of DIY cultured meat community Shojinmeat which he started with the idea of “democratizing meat.” The aim was to give every household the ability to grow their own cultured meat in their own homes. IntegriCulture spun out from Shojinmeat in 2015. IntegriCulture’s new CulNet system, which it unveiled earlier this month, is geared towards that, allowing businesses and even (very ambitious) individuals to culture their own animal tissue.

While that sounds a little more involved than, say, growing a garden or even making your own yeast at home, it’s possible the pandemic will accelerate this idea of democratizing meat. 

In the future, IntegriCulture hopes its CulNet system will be able to culture any type of animal cell, so that they can branch out into other types of alt-meat production and even move into non-food industries like medical and skincare. 

Good Food Institute Awards $4M to Scientists Forging the Future of Alt-Meat

The Good Food Institute (GFI), a nonprofit trying to promote the evolution of alternative protein, announced today that it had awarded $4 million to 21 research projects to advance the study of plant-based and cultured meat. The money came from GFI’s donor-supported Competitive Research Grant Program, which thus far has donated over $7 million since it was founded last year.

The selected projects hail from nine different countries. Eight are tackling cultured (which GFI called ‘cultivated‘) meat and Here’s a quick list of some of the cool projects the 2020 grantees are leading:

  • Faster, cheaper cultured meat production. Dr. Marianne Ellis of the University of Bath, UK is developing a smaller, more cost-efficient production system for cell-based meat. She hopes that this will make cellular agriculture more accessible, including for those in remote locations and developing countries.
  • Turning waste into plant protein. Dr. Marieke Bruins of Wageningen University in the Netherlands is using plant-based proteins upcycled from agricultural waste streams to make super sustainable meat alternatives.
  • 3D printed cultured meat. Dr. Sara Oliveira of INL in Portugal is working on a bioprinted model for cultured meat design. Called M3atD, the model will help her team explore how 3D printing can help accelerate cell-based meat production.

You can see the full list of grantees from 2020 and 2019 here, if you’re interested. But overall, it seems that the most recent crop of grantees are trying to improve four key areas for plant- and cell-based meat: cost, taste, texture, and scaling. As consumers continue to hunger for plant-based meat, and cell-based meat keeps trekking towards the market, these improvements will be necessary to keep flexitarians satisfied, attract new diners, and reduce the environmental footprint of alt-proteins.

Admittedly, alternative meat is probably not the issue at the forefront of everyone’s mind right now. But in a time when your newsfeed is full of articles about pandemics, social distancing and scary outlooks, it’s nice to be reminded that positive progress is still going on to help the planet, and help us eat better too.

Aleph Farms Launches Educational Complex, Gen Z Board to Destigmatize Cultured Meat

Cultured meat (or meat grown outside the animal) has been making headlines lately — but when it comes to general consumer awareness, companies still have a long way to go.

That’s the disconnect that Aleph Farms is trying to bridge with two new initiatives it announced today. First, the Israeli startup, which is growing cell-based steak, announced in a press release today that it’s opening an educational complex next to its Israeli production facility to give the public a more in-depth view of cultured meat. Literally. The center will allow people to actually see how the company grows its steak cells.

You can’t just waltz right in to peek behind the curtain, though. Interested parties have to submit a request to tour the facility. According to a press release, the center will admit groups of up to 20 people, and visitor priority will be given to “student delegations, academy, non-governmental and non-profit organizations.” As far as I know, this will be the first such official visitor center for a cell-based meat company.

Aleph Farms’ slaughter-free steaks [Photo: Afik Gabay]

Aleph Farms is putting special emphasis on the student angle — and younger people in general. The startup also announced today that it had launched something called a “Z-Board.” This advisory board is made up entirely of Generation Z (that is, people under 25). Z-Board members will “be partners in Aleph’s vision of developing a sustainable food system and building a transparent relationship with consumers and young communities.”

It’s not exactly clear how Aleph’s Z-Board will do all of those things (Leading social media campaigns? Giving insight into Gen Z purchasing behavior?) However, it is telling that the Israeli company is so intent on targeting younger consumers. Gen Z not only has significant buying power, they’re also the ones who will likely be the most open to trying cell-based meat. The demographic is also more highly motivated by ethical and environmental concerns than older groups, both of which could lead them to support cultured meat.

Aleph Farms has been taking big steps to grow its footprint over the past year. Last May the company announced it had grown muscle tissue in space, just a few months after it closed a $12 million fundraise.

Compared to those tidbits, news of a visitor center and Gen Z-centered board may seem pretty lackluster. However, I think it illustrates how Aleph Farms is playing the long game. The startup realizes that cultured meat will face a myriad of challenges in its trek towards the market, from scaling to cost to regulation. With its new initiatives, Aleph Farms is working to ensure that consumer understanding and acceptance isn’t one of them.