Firm Funded $55 Million to Make Commercial Lab-Grown Meat
We have all heard about alternatives to meat like steak made from peas and seaweed and those actually grown in a lab. Now, the company who grew the first burger in a laboratory seven years ago has received $55 million in funds to develop their advanced tech, according to Unilad.
Dutch company Mosa Meat has been awarded the funding by Luxemburg’s Blue Horizon Ventures in order to expand its factory to provide meat alternatives for all of Europe. The key to Moasa Meat’s success is that they actually produce real meat, arguably in a non-cruel way.
RELATED: 7 TECHNOLOGY STARTUPS USING SCIENCE TO CREATE HEALTHY MEAT ALTERNATIVES
The only difference is that it is grown in a lab so it does not harm any animals and also does not contain any of the additives detrimental to human and animal health associated with farming. And Mosa Meat has huge plans for its advanced technology.
“In the next three years, we aim to scale up to one industrial-sized production line, work with regulators to demonstrate the safety of cultivated meat, and introduce the first cultivated beef to consumers,” Sarah Lucas, who is the head of production for Mosa told Unilad.
The start-up already has come a long way. They now have 50 scientists on their payroll and what’s more, they have managed to decrease the price of a lab-made burger 88-fold since it was first introduced back in 2013.
Yes! You read that right. Back in 2013, a Mosa Meat burger used to cost about $290 (€250). At that price who could afford a burger? Luckily now, the price of each individual burger is just about $10 (€9).
How did the firm manage to make such a cost-effective reduction? It’s all about the serum the burgers were made in. The production of lab-grown meat cells used to require fetal bovine serum (FBS). This serum found in a cow’s uterus was ultra-expensive.
Once the team figured out how to make the burgers without FBS, the price went down dramatically. And that is good news as we can all benefit from these healthier alternatives!
