Innovators
The "Godfather"
of cultured meat
Dutch researcher and entrepreneur, Willem van Eelen, was born on July 4th, 1923 in Indonesia. He died in Amsterdam on the 24th of February 2015.
He was a prisoner of war in Japanese Camps in Indonesia during World War II. As of a result, he almost died of malnutrition and extreme hunger. Surviving from the incident, he took a deep interest in food and animal welfare.
He's known as the "godfather" of cultured meat because he essentially fostered the growth of the field and paved a path for future investing companies that hope to seek alternative ways to sustain the world.[22]
Willem Van Eelen
Willem Van Eelen
The Start-Ups
a few of the investing companies
While many universities and large companies conduct research for regenerative medicine, the start-ups seek to apply their technique to conventionalize lab-grown beef and chicken. The demand for meat (that can feed the expected 10 billion people on Earth by the mid-century) and the limited resources (as global warming is hurting farmers and depleted water resources are increasing) drive the market for cultured meat. Therefore, companies are seeking ways to commercialize cellular agriculture as a way to end world hunger and reduce emissions that are leading to global climate change.[1]
Founded in 2015, Memphis Meats starts with stem cells from the animals and grows muscle tissues in thin layers inside of bioreactors. In 2016, they premiered their first meatball, later adding chicken and duck to the menu in 2017.
Founded in August 2011, Brooklyn-based has raised $53.5 million and is one of the top-funded ag-tech startups around. The startup promises to one day work on edible meat but currently focuses on producing cruelty-free leather.
Non-profit research institute building field of cellular agriculture. Funds, conducts open, public, collaborative research that reinvents the way we make animal products (without animals).
Mosa Meat was the world’s first tissue cultured hamburger. This company aims to develop tissue engineering into a technology that can mass-produce affordable meat.
Finless Foods is a food startup working toward a world where everyone has access to healthy, delectable seafood, without the environmental devastation or the health hazards of traditional fishing and aquatic farming.
An Isreali biotech and food startup company that is developing lab-made chicken meat. They have raised more than $3 million in seed funding.
Formerly Hampton Creek, announced that they would bring lab-grown meat to the market by 2018. Founder Joshua Tetrick claims that JUST has “cracked the code.” Their cell media is free of FBS, and is therefore cheaper.
The largest meat packer in US. Co-leading a $2.2 million seed investment in Future Meat Industries for lab grown meat.
The future of cellular agriculture depends on these small startups that invest and develop this technology because it is very costly. Although this technology is promising, challenges such as finding a cell source, cultured media, mimicking the in-vivo myogenesis environment, acquiring animal-derived and synthetic materials, and bioprocessing for commercial-scale production are major financial obstacles for all companies. [11] When looking at the totality of challenges for this technology, we can see that they are mostly financial. These small startups and investors give this area of biotechnology a chance to get started and hopefully advance the field of cultured foods in order to sustain a larger population with less costs to our own environment.[12]