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

news.ycombinator.com

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

#31

Post by Nathanael_M »

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 even just for it to become a viable option for restaurants/consumers?

3) How is flavour added in the process? Since diet has so much impact on flavour, how can you experiment with flavour while growing it in lab? I understand this is specific to another step in the process, so if you can't answer, no worries.

4) When you say scaffolding, my mind immediately goes to a very visual/physically defined place. I'm picturing like a Ribeye Exoskeleton. What level of control over the sculpting of the end product do you have, or does the scaffolding function on a very general growth support level that results in the development of an end product that is then sculpted by the meat-maker?

5) Anne-Sophie, have you tried any lab grown meat?

6) How far away are we from seeing "at-home" kits for meat growing? I'm picturing a world where a restaurant has their meat-printer going all the time, experimenting with different flavours and textures for the next menu!

7) Does this have any non-edible use cases? Can this process be applied to growing functional muscle/tissue, not just edible muscle/tissue?

Thanks! Again, feel free to pick and choose.

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

#32

Post by rolleiflex »

Just wanted to say this is probably the best launch HN description I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been here for the better part of the decade. Thank you for going into the real meat (ahem) of it and not being scared of writing at length.

Your cause, if successful, will hopefully indirectly result in orders of magnitude reduction in total animal suffering, so best of luck and godspeed.

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

#33

Post by vpribble »

Depurator wrote: post #29

Exciting stuff, congrats on the launch! Does this mean that you are able to create adherent culture while still facilitating metabolic activities in multi-layer tissue?

Yes we are! While the cell metabolism is marginally diminished by our scaffolding method, the overall cell viability remains high.

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

#34

Post by Nathanael_M »

greggeter wrote: post #19

Honest question. Why make meat? Why not use your resources to create nutrition bars? You have to source everything the meat needs to grow anyway (and what are those sources/impacts?), why not just press it in a bar and be done? If you're afraid folks will really miss their meat, so you want to ply them with meat, let me just say - folks who love meat will find the meat they love. They won't likely shift to reactor me…

Just throwing one option in here, if lab-grown meat can be grown cheaper than regular meat is produced, there's definitely a market. I like beef. Beef is getting VERY expensive where I live. If I could get lab-grown beef that's, say, 80% the experience at 50% the cost, I'd happily do that.

I think achieving a future where eating real meat is treated like a special occasion, but lab-grown meat is the norm is possible.

Finally, very few people would eat nutrition bars as regular meal replacements. Maybe there's a (vaguely dystopian) future where people replace most their meals with joyless supplementation, but I think a lot more success will be found in replacing real-meat with lab-meat.

Maybe this is all just too optimistic.

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

#35

Post by bleuchase »

> but the climate crisis needs direct attention in order to stop, reverse and survive the impacts of climate change.

Since you brought it up, are you aware of how global average surface temperature is measured? Or the adjustments that have been made to historic records?

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

#36

Post by xusbwxucur »

greggeter wrote: post #19

Honest question. Why make meat? Why not use your resources to create nutrition bars? You have to source everything the meat needs to grow anyway (and what are those sources/impacts?), why not just press it in a bar and be done? If you're afraid folks will really miss their meat, so you want to ply them with meat, let me just say - folks who love meat will find the meat they love. They won't likely shift to reactor me…

No post body was provided.

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

#37

Post by shafyy »

coldpie wrote: post #22
shafyy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very good article. I place lab-grown in the same mind bucket as carbon capturing. Both are futuristic technologies that don't exist today (not really) but get a lot of media hype. For both, there's a much easier solution that exists today (e.g, switching to renewable energies, switching to plant-based meats) that are great and are also gaining a lot of traction. With both tech, it's unclear if they will eve…

Asking/forcing people to change their behavior doesn't have a great track record. Given that constraint, putting effort into tech like this makes sense, especially if it's in addition to making behavior changes less difficult, like you propose. It's not an either-or.

I didn't say we need to ask people to change their behavior. I know that that's futile. My point is that great alternatives already exist, that don't demand a behavior change. For example, renewable energies and plant-based meats (Impossible and others).

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

#38

Post by dang »

xusbwxucur wrote: post #36
greggeter wrote: post #19

Honest question. Why make meat? Why not use your resources to create nutrition bars? You have to source everything the meat needs to grow anyway (and what are those sources/impacts?), why not just press it in a bar and be done? If you're afraid folks will really miss their meat, so you want to ply them with meat, let me just say - folks who love meat will find the meat they love. They won't likely shift to reactor me…

Quoted post unavailable.

Whoa - please don't cross into personal or regional attack. That just makes everything worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#39

Post by coldpie »

shafyy wrote: post #37
coldpie wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking/forcing people to change their behavior doesn't have a great track record. Given that constraint, putting effort into tech like this makes sense, especially if it's in addition to making behavior changes less difficult, like you propose. It's not an either-or.

I didn't say we need to ask people to change their behavior. I know that that's futile. My point is that great alternatives already exist, that don't demand a behavior change. For example, renewable energies and plant-based meats (Impossible and others).

You did, though, it's right in your comment: "excuse to not change their behavior today."

And no, plant-based meat isn't there yet. It's something I often choose myself for environmental reasons, but it's still strictly worse than real beef. And non-ground meat substitutes aren't even in the ballpark.

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

#40

Post by vpribble »

Nathanael_M wrote: post #31

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 3-7 years.

3) For cultivated meat, one method of adding flavor is by cultivating fat cells and merging it with the muscle cells after maturing.

4) With our method, the final shape of the meat can actually get very unique. There really are no limitations on the shape/ layout of the meat, and the final shaping is done after maturing the cells. If you want to have chicken meat in the shape of a ribeye, you will definitely be able to with our technology.

5) We have not tasted it yet, but we will very soon!

6) We are probably closer than you might imagine. Our technology enables production at any scale, from a full industrial plant to a small "home brewing" set-up. Really, it just comes down to getting the medium and growth factors to be cheaper for the average consumer.

7) Generally yes, with some minor and not so minor adaptations.

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