got the nod to go to market from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, a variety of factors will hinder the adoption and growth of no-kill meat. Not least of which is the cost: in the past five years, billions of dollars have been spent on developing the 100-plus startups in the industry. They will need billions more.
The sector “needed a huge shot in the arm for them to be able to say not only are we progressing, but we’re progressing in one of the most challenging aspects of bringing this to market, which is the regulatory,” investor Lisa Feria, the CEO of Kansas City-based Stray Dog Capital, tells. “The scale-up piece still remains as a big, huge, very costly part of bringing this to market.”
Here are some factors that demonstrate what a long journey it will be from regulatory approval to the dinner plates of the average American family.Lab-grown meat costs thousands if not hundreds of thousands per ounce to produce. Brands, however, have decided to take substantial losses so that the prices of cultivated-meat dishes are in line with the ordinary cud-chewers and feed-peckers customers are used to.
“Profitability is very much years off because the biggest challenge ahead of them is can we make it at millions of tons a year and ultimately remotely compete with conventional meat,” says Feria, who backs Upside Foods as well as a host of its competitors, and predicts that a lot of startups will eventually merge or be acquired by large meat companies like Tyson and JBS.Cultivation ain’t cheap.
To produce lab-grown meat, manufacturers use what’s called a bioreactor — the same machinery drug companies use to make vaccines. They’re expensive and have long waitlists. Also costly is construction of the factories in which to put the bioreactors. Good Meat CEO Josh Tetrick says a facility able to produce 30 million pounds of cultivated meat would cost as much as $650 million.