Page 53 - Farm and Food Policy Strategies for 2040 Series

researchers already know the techniques to make those
adjustments, “making a lot more meat with a lot less inputs.”
He believes “that’s a big deal, and I think you’ll see similar

examples in a variety of animals.”

Researchers are also making biotech tweaks, switching genes
on and off and so forth, Nesbitt says, to makes forages, grains
and other feeds more digestible for livestock, for example,
and to alter fungi and bacteria in the microbiomes of the
animal gut to improve digestion to promote animal growth,
health, disease resistance and so forth.

Meat from the laboratory edging toward our plates Matt Ball, Good Food Institute

It’s been five and a half years since the televised tasting of the first laboratory-grown meat
muscle — a beef patty — in the Netherlands. Since, countless labs and investors have been

gathering to launch this new version of animal muscle product that’s called cell-derived or cell-
based meat by most, and clean meat by many of the products’ proponents.

GFI’s Ball says cell-based meat investors’ intent is to “sort of take out the middleman,” the meat
animal, in this case, from the pipeline so making meat becomes cheaper and impacts the
environment much less than does conventional meat.

“There is an inherent inefficiency in feeding crops to animals,” he said, “because they spend

more of their calories on their own metabolism ... their brains, their blood, their bone ... (and)

feathers. Even though the chickens of today grow much faster and with much less feed than
when my grandfather was a farmer, they still take more input than they give as output.”

One startup, San Francisco-based New Age Meats, for example, has been holding tastings for its
experimental cell-based sausage around the country. And Just, which market’s plant-based

products such as Just Mayo, wants to grow its beef from the genetics of a top-line Japanese cattle

breed.

Meanwhile, California-based Memphis Meats (MM) sampled its first cell-based meatballs more
than three years ago and now says it has beef, duck, and chicken products in development. It
announced last August that it had already raised $22 million from investors, including Cargill,
Tyson, Bill Gates and others.

Livestock and processing industries have both pressed regulators to decide rules on labeling and
processing for this new type of bloodless meat that eschews slaughter.

In the U.S., USDA and the Food and Drug Administration, which are working jointly toward
regulating this meat category, held a hearing last October, and Food Safety and Inspection
Service Administrator Carmen Rottenberg said at USDA’s Outlook Forum last week that “we
expect to have something out very soon on a general framework” for cell-based meats.

At the same event, Uma Valeti, MM’s chief executive, declared that his company, when
regulations are completed, will “be ready to go tomorrow.”

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