Since the first 'lab grown burger' was unveiled more than a decade ago, billions of pounds have been thrown at the technology... wealthy investors included Bill Gates and Richard Branson.
You can see why people invested, with a growing population, and growing middle class especially, the demand for meat, or let's say meat derivative, excuse the pun, seemed a likely growth market. I mean this is food, after all, and it's basic-food even with a high tech twist, essential.
The cultivated meat market thus far has involved extracting cells derived from animal foetuses and then cultivating them in bioreactors.
But it seems that 10 years on and A LOT OF VC MONEY the industry faces BIG PROBLEMS!
he expensive nutrients required to nurture lab farmed meat and the the long time scales involved in growing it has hampered developments.
When we say LONG time scales we are not joking, ATM the medium term goal for the lab-meat industry is to put out 30 million pounds of meat annually, but regular meat production stands at 100 billion pounds annually, so the industry isn't set up for scale, and there is no way it's going to be competing with regular meat in the 2020s.
NB that original burger in 2013, that cost $300K!
And there are still huge technological problems to overcome, cultivating meat in the lab is just plain tricky, and there are still regulatory hurdles to overcome.
The industry now probably needs government funding to survive, as the VC money is drying up, unsruprisingly.
No demand...?
Maybe the biggest problem the industry faces and the real reason for the failing of so many lab-meat start ups is the near total lack of demand, people are just disgusted by the idea of this Silicone Valley Frankfood....
Our taste for food is shaped by culture, psychology, family and tradition, and literally NONE of these are to be found in meat grown in a lab!
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