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Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

news.ycombinator.com

61–70 of 205 posts

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contamination is definitely a problem for cultivated meat. It is one of the leading risks when scaling because if the reactor is contaminated at all, you could lose entire batches of meat, and as you can imagine, this is a huge cost hit. To avoid this, cultivated meat is grown in sterile, clean environments. The same kind of equipment you'd find in a hospital (autoclaves) is used to sterilize the equipment common in…

I'm also assuming that with your system engineering background, you're also limiting personnel access to the reactors or better, to the rooms where they will be located as well as all security measures to avoid social engineering hacking into the facilities, right Vincent? Congrats on the initiative, just absolutely fantastic!

Of course! As the factories get larger and larger, security becomes even more important, and traditional methods such as limiting access, badge-in/ badge-out, and access codes would be utilized.

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#62

Wow, I have so many questions. First, I really respect people acting on conviction. Anyway, I have lots of questions (all completely uninformed) so feel free to ignore any of them, haha. 1) Where are you in the development process? Have your scaffolds been used to successfully grow a piece of edible meat? 2) When do you think the value of cultivated meat will grow to a point to make the industry self-sustaining? Or e…

1) We have already created our first piece of edible pork using our method! 2) ATKearney in their article "How will cultured meat and meat alternatives disrupt the agricultural and food industry?" estimates that about 10% of global meat consumption could be switched over to cultivated meat around 2030. While 10% is low, I think you'll start seeing restaurant experiences start cropping up more and more over the next 3…

> Good Food Institute is estimating that about 10% of global meat consumption could be switched over to cultivated meat around 2030. While 10% is low

10% in the next 8 years seems very impressive to me. Do you have a link to the report? I searched but their State of the Industry report has a question mark instead of a date

https://gfi.org/resource/cultivated-meat-eggs-and-dairy-stat...

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#63

Interesting stuff! I've read that contamination is a huge issue, essentially, bacteria grows much better and faster at the substrate than mammalian cells. So, how do you avoid inadvertently cultivating smelly plaques instead of delicious meat? Or is that not really an issue and I'm misinformed? Best of luck. We really need it.

Contamination is definitely a problem for cultivated meat. It is one of the leading risks when scaling because if the reactor is contaminated at all, you could lose entire batches of meat, and as you can imagine, this is a huge cost hit. To avoid this, cultivated meat is grown in sterile, clean environments. The same kind of equipment you'd find in a hospital (autoclaves) is used to sterilize the equipment common in…

Do these sterility requirements have an impact on the food safety concerns for the final product? e.g. does the meat end up either completely ruined vs. totally safe to eat raw? Just curious, I have no plans to eat raw cultivated meat :)

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#66
I applaud your attempts to tackle such a big issue. I'm a meat eater but the sheer number of animals killed to satisfy our appetite for meat is pretty shocking.

My question is about nutrition and taste: does cultivated meat contain the same nutrition as animal meat?

For example, farm animals may be pasture-fed and reared outside. The meat will probably be expensive but of excellent quality. Or the farm animals may be reared in a industrial-scale farming process that produces cheap supermarket meat (i.e. what many of us buy and eat in the Western World). Given the nutrition and taste profile of these animals is different, how do you cultivate the meat to taste excellent and contain good nutrition? Thank you.

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) We have already created our first piece of edible pork using our method! 2) ATKearney in their article "How will cultured meat and meat alternatives disrupt the agricultural and food industry?" estimates that about 10% of global meat consumption could be switched over to cultivated meat around 2030. While 10% is low, I think you'll start seeing restaurant experiences start cropping up more and more over the next 3…

> Good Food Institute is estimating that about 10% of global meat consumption could be switched over to cultivated meat around 2030. While 10% is low 10% in the next 8 years seems very impressive to me. Do you have a link to the report? I searched but their State of the Industry report has a question mark instead of a date https://gfi.org/resource/cultivated-meat-eggs-and-dairy-stat...

Good catch! This should have said ATKearney, and has been updated. You can find the report here: https://gastronomiaycia.republica.com/wp-content/uploads/201...

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#68

@asmertgen thoughts on this research https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-sca... ?

Great question. We had this discussion internally quite a lot. Since my co-founder comes from launching rockets let me use this analogy: 20 years ago Elon Musk was though to be crazy when he wanted to build reusable rockets. But now it works. It took a lot of smart minds, effort and money. But they did it. We believe it will be the same with cultivated meat. Completely changing a system, in our case food system, is a…

Do you have a clear ideas of what will enable your solution surpass the $50-chicken-nuggets unit economics mentioned? Is that a mid term goal of yours?

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#69

Stop before you destroy the planet and people with unsustainable fake food. Cows are an important part of the carbon cycle. https://www.sacredcow.info/

This seems wildly alarmist. I'm not sure anyone's arguing for the complete removal of cows from the ecosystem. I'm also confident people won't stop eating real beef, even if factory farming is reduced and real beef becomes slightly more novel.
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