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Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

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Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#21

Post by SapphireSun »

adamnemecek wrote: post #14
grizzles wrote: post #10

Lab grown meat is the industry I'd pick if I had to pick where the next rags to world's richest person will come from. Can it be scaled & beat conventional slaughter economically? I'm betting that it can. And it will disrupt a 100B+ annual industry.

I agree to some extent but selling physical products, let alone perishable products is an insane endeavor.

Tell that to farmers, grocers, restauranteurs, laboratories, chemists, and many many other industries. Those problems are real, and they need solving even if their profit margins are lower (which is not always true).

Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#22

Post by nightski »

deegles wrote: post #7
nightski wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure it tastes just fine, but at something like $16/lb for a hamburger substitute that puts it on the same price level as prime grade ribeye or tenderloin. It's really unfortunate all the meat "alternatives" take the organic/healthy but huge premium approach as this makes it very inaccessible to your standard consumer. Maybe for 6+ figure earning HNers it's not an issue but for the majority of the country it is.

Prime grade meat will stay that price or higher forever... manufactured protein will go down in price over time.

Sure costs will go down. But as far as price goes that's my point, it doesn't feel like they want it to go down.

It keeps being priced and pitched as a premium organic healthy food and not something everyone can afford.

Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#23

Post by mmisu »

sethbannon wrote: post #5

For those that are curious, as an early investor and advocate for clean meat, I wrote about my experience eating Memphis Meats' products and why their solution is so much better than convention meat production: https://medium.com/@sethbannon/i-just-ate-meat-for-the-first...

I find it disingenous to call meat grown in a lab clean meat. Would you call Margarine clean butter ?

Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#24

Post by bllguo »

nightski wrote: post #22
deegles wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prime grade meat will stay that price or higher forever... manufactured protein will go down in price over time.

Sure costs will go down. But as far as price goes that's my point, it doesn't feel like they want it to go down. It keeps being priced and pitched as a premium organic healthy food and not something everyone can afford.

I don't really understand this concern; this is a common strategy for introducing new products. When smartphones came out they were a premium product. Over time they became more accessible as the market grew beyond just the first adopters. They're arguably commoditized now, if we're thinking about super cheap Android phones.

Tesla is another example.

And economics should force price down, if the costs of manufactured protein decrease substantially.

Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#25

Post by emmp »

mmisu wrote: post #23
sethbannon wrote: post #5

For those that are curious, as an early investor and advocate for clean meat, I wrote about my experience eating Memphis Meats' products and why their solution is so much better than convention meat production: https://medium.com/@sethbannon/i-just-ate-meat-for-the-first...

I find it disingenous to call meat grown in a lab clean meat . Would you call Margarine clean butter ?

Why not? As long as its vegan margarine. Its clean of at least a subset of ethical concerns that many foods are not. Clean is a very overloaded word though so I certainly see where you're coming from, but it works just fine for me.

Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#26

Post by emmp »

jseliger wrote: post #3

Beyond Meat gets name-checked in the article, but I want to emphasize that their burgers are pretty good: https://jakeseliger.com/2017/08/23/beyond-meat-burgers-are-p... and in my view underappreciated right now. If you've not tried them yet, you ought to.

The cat food smell when you cook them is for real. I noticed it independently, and it turns out plenty of people had already observed this. I wonder if this will hinder mass adoption -- it really did make my apartment smell strange! They tasted great though.

Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#27

Post by nkkollaw »

kjksf wrote: post #16

As a counter point, the CEO of Impossible Burgers thinks that meat grown from cells is "stupidest idea ever" ( http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/inventions/arti... ). And I kind of don't see how Memphis Meat can possibly compete with Impossible Burger (or other companies that can produce meat-like products from vegetables + industrial processing). Today Memphis Meat costs "several thousand" per pound and g…

What a dumb idea to base one's argument regarding these things on price.

As a new tech it will cost a lot (like computers once did, now you can get one for $5), but the price will eventually go down.

Perhaps my generation won't enjoy fake meat like a real steak just because of the idea, but younger people won't mind.

Personally, I'll take anything that can stop killing all those animals to then throw away huge quantities (if unsold).

Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#28

Post by maxerickson »

emmp wrote: post #25
mmisu wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it disingenous to call meat grown in a lab clean meat . Would you call Margarine clean butter ?

Why not? As long as its vegan margarine. Its clean of at least a subset of ethical concerns that many foods are not. Clean is a very overloaded word though so I certainly see where you're coming from, but it works just fine for me.

It would probably be illegal to market a product that wasn't butter as "Clean Butter", because there are rules about labeling things as butter.

So I won't be surprised if the animal products industry lobbies for rules about what can be called meat (or if such rules already exist).

Of course such labeling concerns don't apply to an internet discussion, but they do indicate that people care about what's in a name.

Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#29

Post by KitDuncan »

mmisu wrote: post #20
dsego wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's safer, probably harder to get mad cow disease or salmonella, don't you think? Also, today we get it from animals pumped full of antibiotics, hormones living in their own excrement.

I guess it is a question of personal choice. I won't eat fake meat the same way as I don't eat highly processed food unless I'm forced to eat it.

Seems like a very close minded thing to do. Unless of course you're not eating meat at all. In which case I understand.

Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#30

Post by sethbannon »

kjksf wrote: post #16

As a counter point, the CEO of Impossible Burgers thinks that meat grown from cells is "stupidest idea ever" ( http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/inventions/arti... ). And I kind of don't see how Memphis Meat can possibly compete with Impossible Burger (or other companies that can produce meat-like products from vegetables + industrial processing). Today Memphis Meat costs "several thousand" per pound and g…

Here's a point by point rebuttal of Pat Brown's comments I wrote: https://medium.com/@sethbannon/cleaning-the-record-on-clean-...
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