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Startup Serves Up Chicken Produced From Cells in Lab

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Re: Startup Serves Up Chicken Produced From Cells in Lab

#31

Post by sethbannon »

yourapostasy wrote: post #24
sethbannon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The costs are still too high for commercial viability but they're dropping rapidly. In 2013, the first cultured burger cost $330,000 to make. Just under a year ago, Memphis Meats was at $18,000/lb of clean beef produced. Now they're at $9,000/lb. This is before any sort of efficiencies from scale, and before many steps of the process have been anywhere near fully optimized. They expect their costs to reach 2 cents/g…

2 cents per gram translates to $9.07 per pound of Memphis Meats' cost. Assuming they skip the distributors (unlikely) and sell straight to retailers, it will be easily double that at the retail level, $18.14 per pound. They are more likely to end up around the $25-30 per pound price point at retail once all is said and done. That's starting to wander into dry-aged beef ribeye territory at a higher-end version of comm…

You're absolutely right on the pricing and go to market strategy.

The regulatory frameworks are still up in the air. I know from having attending the 1st and 2nd Cultured Meat Symposiums in Maastricht that both the USDA and the FDA are looking at clean meat. While both agencies seem pretty open and friendly towards it, they unfortunately both think they should be the one to regulate it :-)

Re: Startup Serves Up Chicken Produced From Cells in Lab

#32

Post by sethbannon »

arikr wrote: post #26
sethbannon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The costs are still too high for commercial viability but they're dropping rapidly. In 2013, the first cultured burger cost $330,000 to make. Just under a year ago, Memphis Meats was at $18,000/lb of clean beef produced. Now they're at $9,000/lb. This is before any sort of efficiencies from scale, and before many steps of the process have been anywhere near fully optimized. They expect their costs to reach 2 cents/g…

That's awesome! Any source on the 2c/g by 2021 goal?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZQMdlNOMew

Re: Startup Serves Up Chicken Produced From Cells in Lab

#33

Post by anotheryou »

markba wrote: post #29
readams wrote: post #27

Though I'm a meat eater, I have a strong suspicion that the arrival of high-quality meat alternatives will cause a societal shift away from eating meat to the point where it would become rare. As it is, giving up meat is a huge decline in quality of life and its easy to rationalize meat consumption. It needs to be actually comparable in quality and the price needs to come way down though first. It's easy to imagine a…

How is it a huge decline in quality of life?

Like changing 80% of all meals to something less desired?

"huge" is debatable, but certainly a valid standpoint. In any way: there are pros and cons and everyone should weigh them against each other: health, price, animal cruelty, taste etc.

My compromise e.g. is non strict (and hopefully non dogmatic) vegetarian with preferably organic diary products.

Re: Startup Serves Up Chicken Produced From Cells in Lab

#34

Post by marricks »

readams wrote: post #27

Though I'm a meat eater, I have a strong suspicion that the arrival of high-quality meat alternatives will cause a societal shift away from eating meat to the point where it would become rare. As it is, giving up meat is a huge decline in quality of life and its easy to rationalize meat consumption. It needs to be actually comparable in quality and the price needs to come way down though first. It's easy to imagine a…

I gave up animal products and found a pretty good increase in quality of life.

It happened when other changes were occuring in my life, but I lost weight, hung out with other vegans, felt better overall.

It can really depend on when you live, but being vegan in most US metropolitan areas is pretty easy these days.

As for lab meats, they're great and I'm generally for them, but acting like we don't have viable other solutions is a bit silly. Lentils, beans, nuts, seeds, seitan, tofu, all great sources of protein.

Re: Startup Serves Up Chicken Produced From Cells in Lab

#35

Post by m_fayer »

markba wrote: post #29
readams wrote: post #27

Though I'm a meat eater, I have a strong suspicion that the arrival of high-quality meat alternatives will cause a societal shift away from eating meat to the point where it would become rare. As it is, giving up meat is a huge decline in quality of life and its easy to rationalize meat consumption. It needs to be actually comparable in quality and the price needs to come way down though first. It's easy to imagine a…

How is it a huge decline in quality of life?

Meat is the easiest form of high quality protein. Not everyone's digestive system is amenable to high quantities of non-meat protein sources or to high-carb diets.

Re: Startup Serves Up Chicken Produced From Cells in Lab

#36

Post by neutronicus »

markba wrote: post #29
readams wrote: post #27

Though I'm a meat eater, I have a strong suspicion that the arrival of high-quality meat alternatives will cause a societal shift away from eating meat to the point where it would become rare. As it is, giving up meat is a huge decline in quality of life and its easy to rationalize meat consumption. It needs to be actually comparable in quality and the price needs to come way down though first. It's easy to imagine a…

How is it a huge decline in quality of life?

If you work out, figuring out where your protein's gonna come from is a huge pain in the ass (especially if you want to avoid Soy).

Re: Startup Serves Up Chicken Produced From Cells in Lab

#37

Post by cderwin »

sethbannon wrote: post #16
whyenot wrote: post #4

At $9,000 per pound of meat, this is not going to be replacing real meat from animals anytime soon. Chickens are already highly efficient when it comes to converting feed into edible meat. I'm skeptical that cell culture will ever be able to come close to the same level of efficiency. Cell cultures need to be sterile, the sugars, growth factors, and other nutrients used need to be highly refined. These are not requir…

You're absolutely right that conventional chicken is the hardest nut to crack when it comes to achieving price parity (beef and pork are easier), but I'm much more optimistic than you. In 2013, the first cultured burger cost $330,000 to make. Just under a year ago, Memphis Meats was at $18,000/lb of clean beef produced. Now they're at $9,000/lb. This is before any sort of efficiencies from scale, and before many step…

A couple comments who knows absolutely nothing about how this works:

* They don't need to reach price parity to be financially successful. I'm sure there are people out there (former vegans/vegetarians or those considering veganism/vegetarianism) who would pay a marked up price. People already pay marked up proces for things like grass-fed beef and uncured meats.

* Is there any evidence that these price decreases hold at scale? There's a world of difference in being able to provide a market niche with artificial chicken at low cost and being able to produce enough chicken for the whole market at those marginal costs.

Re: Startup Serves Up Chicken Produced From Cells in Lab

#38

Post by MisterBastahrd »

neutronicus wrote: post #36
markba wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it a huge decline in quality of life?

If you work out, figuring out where your protein's gonna come from is a huge pain in the ass (especially if you want to avoid Soy).

Not really. Protein is plentiful in the plant world, and soy isn't the only supplemental source.

Re: Startup Serves Up Chicken Produced From Cells in Lab

#40

Post by digikata »

So why are all the engineered meat startups targeting pretty common meats that are fairly low cost? Why not a something like tuna which is endangered and can sell at a really high cost per pound. Take the Tesla strategy and build for a high-end exotic market that can sustain a high-margin first then get into position for the wider, lower margin market.
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