World's Largest Vats For Growing 'No-Kill' Meat To Be Built In US (theguardian.com) 183
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The building of the world's largest bioreactors to produce cultivated meat has been announced, with the potential to supply tens of thousands of shops and restaurants. Experts said the move could be a "gamechanger" for the nascent industry. The US company Good Meat said the bioreactors would grow more than 13,000 tons of chicken and beef a year. It will use cells taken from cell banks or eggs, so the meat will not require the slaughter of any livestock. There are about 170 companies around the world working on cultured meat, but Good Meat is the only company to have gained regulatory approval to sell its product to the public. It began serving cultivated chicken in Singapore in December 2020.
The creation of Good Meat's 10 new bioreactors is under way, the company says, each of which has a capacity of 250,000 liters and will stand four stories tall, far bigger than any constructed to date. The US site for the facility is due to be finalized within three months and operational in late 2024, reaching 11,800 tons a year by 2026 and 13,700 tons by 2030. The bioreactors are being manufactured as part of an agreement with ABEC, a leading bioprocess equipment manufacturer, which is also making a 6,000-liter bioreactor for Good Meat's Singapore site -- this is scheduled to begin production in early 2023 and will itself be the biggest cultured meat bioreactor installed to date. Cultivated meat has not yet been approved for sale by the US Food and Drug Administration. "Weâ(TM)ve submitted our application," said Josh Tetrick, the chief executive of Good Meatâ(TM)s parent company, Eat Just. "Weâ(TM)ve found the agency to be fully engaged, asking all the questions youâ(TM)d expect, from cell identification to final product. Weâ(TM)d prefer not to try to predict if and when [approval] will occur."
Tetrick also said the company had produced a cell growth serum that does not require the use of bovine fetuses, which were previously widely used.
The creation of Good Meat's 10 new bioreactors is under way, the company says, each of which has a capacity of 250,000 liters and will stand four stories tall, far bigger than any constructed to date. The US site for the facility is due to be finalized within three months and operational in late 2024, reaching 11,800 tons a year by 2026 and 13,700 tons by 2030. The bioreactors are being manufactured as part of an agreement with ABEC, a leading bioprocess equipment manufacturer, which is also making a 6,000-liter bioreactor for Good Meat's Singapore site -- this is scheduled to begin production in early 2023 and will itself be the biggest cultured meat bioreactor installed to date. Cultivated meat has not yet been approved for sale by the US Food and Drug Administration. "Weâ(TM)ve submitted our application," said Josh Tetrick, the chief executive of Good Meatâ(TM)s parent company, Eat Just. "Weâ(TM)ve found the agency to be fully engaged, asking all the questions youâ(TM)d expect, from cell identification to final product. Weâ(TM)d prefer not to try to predict if and when [approval] will occur."
Tetrick also said the company had produced a cell growth serum that does not require the use of bovine fetuses, which were previously widely used.
Inevitable reference ... (Score:2)
Due to its enormous popularity, Good Meat is in short supply, so remember—Tuesday is Good Meat day.
Where are all the tough guys? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Where are all the tough guys? (Score:5, Interesting)
Barn-raised chicken is already very resource-efficient and humane (some will always argue), true, so I don't see the point of vat-grown pseudo chicken.
But red meat is becoming a problem. Here in Australia we have plenty of land that is not much use for anything but grazing, so lots of reasonably priced grass-fed beef and lamb. But worldwide, that is not the case. Too many people, not enough space, and animals being kept in pens and fed grain.
Already, wild fish is a scarce commodity, and we are becoming accustomed to farmed fish. More and more aquaculture will be in indoor tanks.
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Barn-raised chicken is already very resource-efficient and humane (some will always argue), true, so I don't see the point of vat-grown pseudo chicken.
Fence part of garden. Let them supplement their diet with bugs. They will do a nice job of fertilizing that garden.
But red meat is becoming a problem.
Pork, messy but efficient. Yeah, not red. But if the choice is bacon or steak ...
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Barn raised chicken? Not enough barns to meet the chicken demand. The only way to meet that, outside of vat-grown, is factory farms. Take a look at the effluent discharged from those on the Eastern shore of Maryland or in Virginia. You wouldn't want one of those as your next door neighbor.
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Anything a big corporation can do, smaller entities can accomplish (sometimes by working together, such as large capital projects.) Food production requires more human labor when it's more distributed, but it's potentially more efficient in every other way when the distribution is efficient. Right now, out on the road, there are literally functionally identical goods (same brand, same size package, etc.) being shipped past one another. And then there's a lot of other less-identical but still highly similar
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you're right that you can grow it fairly efficiently, but you still have to kill it, skin it, remove the bones.
What are you eating? McNuggets? That's not meat thankyou. I'll have my chicken cooked skin-on and bone-in please.
OK, sure, vats can make hamburgers and mcnuggets, but I prefer a roast chicken thigh or lamb cutlet.
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It's a complicated question like everything else. Is it wiser to eat vat meat or real meat. What's the chance that either one will be contaminated invisibly, etc etc. As things stand now processed meats are pretty unsafe although it doesn't have to be that way, that's only most profitable. Can you have sustainable real meat, the answer is yes, there are historical examples which are sustainable. Will we ever implement any of those, probably not, so around in a circle again.
My concern is that they will accid
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> It's probably yucky.
I mean, it's cancerous muscle cells grown on a scaffold of real bovine collagen, with who knows what added contaminates and who knows what missing nutrients - but you go ahead and try to strawman machismo as the main objection.
Re:Where are all the tough guys? (Score:4, Insightful)
Silent Green (Score:3)
Solvent Green started in 2022.
Re: Silent Green (Score:2)
Oops, that's Soylent Green, I think.
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No, Solvent Green was accurate, and about as stupid an idea.
Not much. (Score:3)
They're aiming for over 13,000 tons a year by 2030.
Just for context, the US consumes 112,000 tons a DAY by my math (274lbs of meat a person on average per year, which is over 41m tons a year going with 300m population [being conservative, probably refers to a 330m pop].) Does that math add up?
If so, is there even a point for this?
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At some point these was one single transistor on this planet and it was 6 inches square. Within a few years they were pea sized and mass produced. Now your average cpu has a few billion on an area the size of a postage stamp.
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They're aiming for over 13,000 tons a year by 2030.
Just for context, the US consumes 112,000 tons a DAY by my math (274lbs of meat a person on average per year, which is over 41m tons a year going with 300m population [being conservative, probably refers to a 330m pop].) Does that math add up?
If so, is there even a point for this?
Sure.
It means they're unlikely to overproduce and saturate the market.
And if these plants prove successful, they'll start building more until they make a real dent.
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If so, is there even a point for this?
The industry is in its infancy. Imagine if we required all energy generation to come from renewables before we installed a single renewable.
If this works they'll build more just like with renewables.
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The goal is 13k tons for 2030. That's like 3hrs of meat replacement for the YEAR of consumption.
We really can't wait for this to scale.
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Not really, I actually ended up putting together a blog post on this:
https://veganfidelity.com/flas... [veganfidelity.com]
As I put it above, the current plan for 13,700 tons of lab meat a year would offset 3 hrs of annual meat consumption...in 2030. To offset 10% of meat consumption, they need to scale this up by 300x.
Even if they could hit that number by 2050, the planet will be mostly flooded, and the remaining land a scorched landscape. We need a lot more, a lot sooner.
Not going to predict? (Score:2)
Now what we need is a process . . . (Score:2)
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to make something as tasty and nutritious as brussel sprouts from meat by-products (skin, organs, bone meal, etc.).
Its called composting. :-)
Alpha Centauri (Score:2)
Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, "Ethics for Tomorrow"
See also Soylent Green. It's made of people! PEOPLE!
It has to be better than real meat (Score:2)
People will buy fake meat as fast as they can make it when it tastes better than dead animal flesh in the same price bracket.
One glorious day there will be production lines churning out fake Wagyu steaks by the ton.
This is just one step in that direction.
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Odds are good that the vat-grown stuff will wind up being cheaper. Just need to scale it out.
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While my next car will likely be a Model 3 they are absolutely not in the same price bracket of gas cars of similar quality. A Model 3 costs about twice what a Honda Civic does and completely lacks the dozens of cool customization options they have.
Of course I'll make a good chunk of that money back due to lower maintenance and using electric charging over gas but I have my doubts that those savings would completely make up the over $20k price difference.
Cue the emergence... (Score:2)
Biggest complaint about lab grown beef (Score:3)
My biggest complaint is that they're targeting the wrong audience. They all keep talking about scale and being cheaper than current beef in the US. They should be instead targeting the ultra high end and worry about scale later.
Japanese A5 wagyu beef is about 100$ per pound. if they can manufacture steaks (I've seen some examples of this over the last year or two), they can target the ultra fatty A5. Sell the lab grown A5 for half the original price of A5 (50$) and ppl like me will buy it up like crazy. the profit margins on A5 lab grown would be absolutely massive compared to the tiny margins offered by cheap steaks due to difficulty of manufacturing.
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They all keep talking about scale and being cheaper than current beef in the US. They should be instead targeting the ultra high end and worry about scale later.
An interesting idea - sort of what Tesla did for electric cars. Maybe this is the way to get wider acceptance, if people see it sold in top end restaurants, etc as consistent, gristle-free high quality food they will be more likely to try it when prices come down and volume goes up.
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Sounds good but I have a feeling there is a lot of yet to be developed tech around the difference between pink slime (like what apparently is in fast food burgers) and well marbled steak. First they have to make something edible, then go after the 1 and 2 star restaurants maybe. Hopefully they will eventually be able to synthesize all of the microtextures you would see in different meat parts and ranks. I met a fake meat company once several years ago and they were on the menu in some upscale bars, so your
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As far as I know we're not their yet with quality for what you describe to even be possible. As far as I understand where we're at right now in terms of quality for artificially grown meat is in the fast food burger tier for beef.
Bulk production is all we have the quality for right now.
Sounds familiar (Score:2)
There was a story [wikipedia.org] about growing things in vats. It didn't end well. Are we sure we want to go down this path?
Have they solved the growth factor issue (Score:2)
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"I know nothing about this but I hate it" (Score:2)
Without SOMETHING like this, we're doomed. I'd give it a try. I've tried meat substitutes before and they're mostly tasty
We know its a tech product not even at beta stage (Score:2)
"I know nothing about this but I hate it"
We know its a tech product not even at the beta stage. So yeah, its a given it probably sucks, badly.
I've tried meat substitutes before and they're mostly tasty
If so they head your own advice because you know nothing about this. Plant based and vat grown meat are not even close to each other. Your experience is useless here.
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Oh come on! (Score:2)
Ok, getting a bit silly that this isn't fixed yet. Can't somebody spend 30 minutes on the code?
Processed Food (Score:2)
Some people are trying to avoid eating highly processed foods, possibly for health reasons. They need to be aware that artificial meat is indeed highly processed.
My brother once asked, "If we are not supposed to eat animals, why are they made out of meat?"
slippery slope (Score:2)
Because... (Score:2)
Because even crazy delusional people need to eat.
No thanks. (Score:2)
2. More highly-processed garbage that will likely have unintentional health consequences no one has bothered researching.
3. No one really wants this in the first place.
4. Unless climate change is addressed, none of this will matter anyway. Fix that first.
As with VHS this will not have its breakthrough (Score:2)
until the porn industry gets wind of it.
Re: Sounds Disgusting (Score:2, Informative)
Well the other long term option is soylent green...
The trick here are two facts. First real estate and two humane treatment of animals. It's easier to grow large quantities of meat this way requiring a smaller footprint to give everyone the meaty meals "they deserve". Second most meat we eat isn't free range and beyond humanely treating animals, it often doesn't even taste as good. I live in Qingdao now, best meat in the world. Why -- virtually all of it's free range.
Luxury "real meat" will still always be
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Another thing is these cultures don't require the evolutionary constraints imposed by being part of a functional animal. That means over time, they can be selected to produce pure deliciousness, more than you could get even from a well treated free range animal, as the deliciousness may correspond to an untenable state for the cells of the complete animal.
Re: Sounds Disgusting (Score:2)
This seems fair but a good steak is a kind of gradient texture which makes its delicious. It seems you could make perfect burgers easily but replacing steak textures would be much more difficult and potentially approach a point where the energy requirements aren't beneficial. Specifically multiple cats of different cultures could need to undergo a 3d printing process to get this gradient I speak of.
That being said, I don't eat many steaks anymore, so I would probably be fine without this level of imitation.
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That being said, I don't eat many steaks anymore, so I would probably be fine without this level of imitation...
I think this is aimed at the garbage "ground beef" they put in buns and tacos and chile, not at the people who eat Wagyus.
(initially, anyway)
Re: Sounds Disgusting (Score:2)
Agreed. And in that, I hope to eat some soon,l. However, I do wonder about degradation. Do new samples for replication need to be regularly collected? Could a failure of to regularly add "stable genetic material avoid potential mutation chains akin to prion disease... Then again,the meat is already out there, so this far seems like no potential side-effect
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Another thing is these cultures don't require the evolutionary constraints imposed by being part of a functional animal. That means over time, they can be selected to produce pure deliciousness
In an ideal world, such a selection might be possible. But we live in the real world, were the first, second and third selection criteria are all the same: Cost reduction. The food industry already substitutes great tasting but expensive ingredients with the cheapest stuff they can get hold of, "taste" or "effects on health" be damned. The very same will happen with artificial meat.
The constraints of meat coming from a once functional animal at least mean its ingredients are not immediately harmful to the
Re: Sounds Disgusting (Score:2)
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But we live in the real world, were the first, second and third selection criteria are all the same: Cost reduction. The food industry already substitutes great tasting but expensive ingredients with the cheapest stuff they can get hold of, "taste" or "effects on health" be damned. The very same will happen with artificial meat.
Meanwhile if you live in an area with a reasonably dense population you can go down to your local Whole Foods type store (hopefully you have better independent options but you work with what you got) where you can buy food made out of quality ingredients. At least if you don't live in an inner city neighborhood.
I don't buy your argument that artificial meat is doomed to poor quality. Even in today's animal based meat industry I have the option to buy cheap shitty quality meat or superior quality meat.
Re: Sounds Disgusting (Score:2)
The safety statement is a good point, but if they can choose what cells they are growing and its mostly all the same, delicious is the money maker. Not good foods are pulled off shelves all the time.
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This "meat" will probably go into cheap fast food burgers where the customer won't be able to tell the difference.
Win for the environment.
Still not healthy to eat too much meat.
Re: Sounds Disgusting (Score:2)
Well, lots of our natural gas goes into making ammonia for fertilizer. the green lobby wants to get rid of that because climate change. That leaves animal manure. But wait, cows are bad for the environment too! Get rid of those. So that leavesâ¦â¦.? Guess half the world will starve
Re:Sounds Disgusting (Score:5, Insightful)
It does sound disgusting... but the alternative is even worse. However, we've just trained ourselves not to think about that. I'm confident that in time we'll train ourselves not to think about this, either.
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It does sound disgusting... but the alternative is even worse. However, we've just trained ourselves not to think about that. I'm confident that in time we'll train ourselves not to think about this, either.
Yea, but this is just the model T of meats. Give it 50 years and fully fleshed out muscle with marbled fat, tendon (if desired), and blood vessels will be cheap and easy to produce.
Re: Sounds Disgusting (Score:2)
Donâ(TM)t you understand there is a PRODUCT to SELL here!
Re:Sounds Disgusting (Score:5, Insightful)
What exactly about meat being grown sounds disgusting? Go to an abattoir and then compare this process with that and decide what is more disgusting.
I love the taste of meat and enjoy eating it. Fortunately I have been able to mostly block out knowledge of how it gets on my plate. If there was an alternative process that could make it that still ended up with the similar or netter texture and flavour without all the stress on whole animals, I'd definitely consider it.
Not a big eater of mince though and I don't want to eat meat paste, so if this only makes that stuff I'm still sticking to meat from animals, but I will continue to try and buy it from producers who at least have the beasts eat real grass and aren't stuck in a cage their whole lives.
Meat vats may be as clean as the baby formula vats (Score:2)
What exactly about meat being grown sounds disgusting?
Well the meat vats may be as clean as the baby formula vats.
Fortunately I have been able to mostly block out knowledge of how it gets on my plate.
I'm no country boy, just a nerd from the suburbs. But once you taste meat from a cow you raised properly, having seen the butchering can have little impact. It becomes a worthwhile tradeoff. YMMV of course.
but I will continue to try and buy it from producers who at least have the beasts eat real grass and aren't stuck in a cage their whole lives.
Sponsor a kid in a 4H program, you get much of the meat.
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Contamination will likely ruin the end product. Wrong taste, wrong texture, wrong everything. Straight out of the gate. It's not going to be like the baby formula recall where a few kids will get sick and die. It'll be the entire batch being a no-go from the start.
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Contamination will likely ruin the end product. Wrong taste, wrong texture, wrong everything. Straight out of the gate. It's not going to be like the baby formula recall where a few kids will get sick and die. It'll be the entire batch being a no-go from the start.
More to the point meat is generally cooked.
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Contamination will likely ruin the end product. Wrong taste, wrong texture, wrong everything. Straight out of the gate. It's not going to be like the baby formula recall where a few kids will get sick and die. It'll be the entire batch being a no-go from the start.
More to the point meat is generally cooked.
Cooking does not repair taste, texture, etc. Overcooked, dried out, and covered in ketchup to mask the sounds like a failure to me. Survival mode rather than good dining.
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Re: Sounds Disgusting (Score:2)
https://youtu.be/HnXfLGcENnI [youtu.be]
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but the alternative is even worse
Which alternative are you talking about? Eating animal meat? I like eating animal meat. I don't have to train my brain not to think about it.
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but the alternative is even worse
Which alternative are you talking about? Eating animal meat? I like eating animal meat. I don't have to train my brain not to think about it.
For some perspective, Allan Savory's TED talk is recommended. As ecologists, they thought that grazing animals were causing desertification, so they shot 10,000 elephants. Later he came to realise that grazing animals are part of the ecosystem which regenerates the soil in conjunction with grasses, and the problem isn't that animals eat (or that we eat animals), it is that humans don't know how to manage the process properly.
And I suspect it is similar with lab cultures. We're going to do it artificially, a
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Let's be honest for starters, the drive to replace a real product with a fake one is just profit.
In theory, yes. I don't see these products succeeded outside of the vegetarian/vegan market. They're looking to replace meat. I'm not and neither are the vast majority of people.
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I noticed that for many Westerners the issue with Japanese/Chinese/Korean food is that it looks like the animal. You get things like tempura where the fish's tail is left sticking out the end (you don't eat that bit), or shrimp that you are expected to skin yourself. Some people eat the head.
To many Westerners that's just icky and they won't go near it. I think most of us don't like to think too much about where the meat comes from and what process it goes through to get to our plate. Being reminded of that
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I noticed that for many Westerners the issue with Japanese/Chinese/Korean food is that it looks like the animal. You get things like tempura where the fish's tail is left sticking out the end (you don't eat that bit), or shrimp that you are expected to skin yourself. Some people eat the head.
I don't have a problem eating a whole lobster or traveling and encountering this. It takes getting used to, and that's all.
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I don't have a problem eating a whole lobster.
Even the shell???
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I don't think I'll ever get past it. I'm fine eating rabbit heart, eel, sea slug, octopus nuggets... Just as long as it doesn't look like the animal it came from.
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It does sound disgusting... but the alternative is even worse. However, we've just trained ourselves not to think about that. I'm confident that in time we'll train ourselves not to think about this, either.
The thing is, unless you're a nutbar like the OP or a militant vegan, it doesn't sound disgusting at all.
If anything, to a rationally thinking person it sounds like a huge advancement. If we can get the tech right we can grow meat faster, cheaper, with fewer additives (easier to control diseases and parasites, so less need to medicate the animals against such things) and better quality control (even the best farming methods produce a fair bit of bad meat... and we only sell a fraction of that bad meat in
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Personally, I've never seen a reason to feel put off by vat grown meat as long as what comes out is close in quality to the real thing.
Of course I also have no problem eating bugs and others reluctance to eating them does actually make some sense to me.
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To me it's more disgusting to think of eating a chopped up dead animal.
Re: Sounds Disgusting (Score:3)
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> If we have the option of eating meat, Without harming any living being, then more power to us.
Earth mean consumption is about 400 000 tons. They produce 13 tons. Se we would need 30769 units of these largest vats. That means that each group of around 250 thousand people (mediocre town) would need to build one of these. Then again, by doing so, they would no longer need other meat products. It might be possible.
But from the timelines and historical records of how fast ideas spread, I estimated that it w
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Are we too lazy to grow real animals? I don't plan on eating any of this so-called meat if I can help it.
That's the thing, they will make sure you can not help it. Gas to $20/gal, Beef $100/pound, and they will have you convert just like they want.
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Real animals take a lot of land, drugs, feed, etc. Looking at the 22 year (so far) drought in the American West,
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu... [unl.edu]
animal meat will become more expensive.
Why would you dismiss vat-meat without trying it? If it has the same connecting cell structure and the cells are still animal cells, then you can still rip of your shirt and grunt appreciatively while eating it.
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Why would you dismiss vat-meat without trying it?
For the same reason I avoid eating other processed foods. I do see a future for this technology, though. We can't easily haul cows into space with our current space fairing means of travel, so this plugs the gap.
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"Are we too lazy to grow real animals? "
Lazy? It's about efficiency.
Some companies only need the back legs of pigs for Pata Negra Ham or San Daniele, why raise a full pig just the have to remove bones afterwards?
Or imagine just growing duck and goose-livers in a vat, that would get PETA off your back.
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We get it. You're a person who is unable to change their way of thinking, also known as a "boomer". Leave the future to the rest of us, thanks.
Boomers are not the only people capable of facing reality. Every generation has those, some more, some less, depending upon their respective levels of sheltering.
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depending upon their respective levels of sheltering
Especially those accustomed to getting participation trophies and who haven't learned how to encounter and accept loss.
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Who gave out the trophies?
Socialist leaning educators
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At least there will be a choice between beef and chicken, with no Soylent Green.
The people were the fertilizer for the cow and chicken feed.
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Who do you mean by “their”?
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They is he or she for gender-neutral nitwits.
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Re:Cultivated meat (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not comfortable calling anything other than animal flesh "meat".
Well, unlike Tofurkey and Impossible Burgers, this material *is* animal flesh. They just figured out how to grow it without needing any of the other parts of the animal.
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Ya, killing and dismembering animals is something to be comfortable with.
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Kibo predicted everything!!
s/Kibo/Pohl [technovelgy.com]/
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Take away the insane amount of subsidies that raising cows gets in the US, and a LOT of things will be cheaper than 'raising a cow'.
No government subsidies (Score:2)
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7 kinds of government subsidies those angry ranchers get that you don’t [grist.org]