Meatly Bring Cultivated Meat to Pets

Written By Paul Gilding

Cultivated meat has various challenges to overcome before it goes to scale. Governments and incumbent companies are pushing to have it banned, it is difficult to create the appropriate scaffolding for texture and we are yet to truly test consumer acceptance. These are just some of the many challenges. Yet within months one company will be selling cultivated meat in the UK.

So how did they do it?

They made it for cats. 🐱

Meatly will likely have cultivated meat available for sale in the UK within months. They will be selling tins of their lab grown chicken in collaboration with Omni, an established pet food company, for around £1.

Using alternative proteins as a food for animals, whether that’s pets or for livestock, could be a breakthrough way to develop the industry. In the UK pets make up 22% of all meat consumption, and it is an easier market given none of the challenges above are applicable. People are far less concerned about the sources of their pets’ food and cats don’t argue about the texture, removing the need for scaffolding. This significantly drops the production costs.

Once approved it will become only the 3rd company in the world to sell cultivated meat, and the first in Europe. They’ve beat far bigger competitors to market, thanks to the easier regulations around pet food.

Meatly also recently announced they have developed a new culture medium (this is what the protein cells are grown in) which is 100x cheaper than current approaches. The lower cost is because it doesn’t include any of the expensive additions other culture mediums need.

This combined with the push into pet food could be a defining moment for the future of the industry, as the growth medium is the main cost associated with cultivated meat. This lower cost could make scaling production viable, driving demand and the scale needed to drive down prices even further. Given the huge methane emissions that come from meat and livestock production this could be a profound development.

Who would have thought your cat could help slow down climate change?

Thanks Garfield.

#cultivatedmeat #fooddisruption #techbreakthrough

Paul Gilding
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So much for free market conservatives!