February 24, 2020

Dutch start-up Meatable develops pork prototype made from cultured animal cells

Krijin de Nood, Meatable CEO said unlike other meat alternative companies, Meatable's pork is not made from animal serum derived from animal blood but rather cultured animal cells, reported Reuters.

Meatable said a single cell is extracted from a living animal painlessly, which is then used to produce large groups of cells to create the meat in days or weeks instead of months. Stanford and Cambridge university scientists developed the technology, based on a study on manipulating living cells that won the a 2012 Nobel Prize.

Meatable raised US$10 million in seed funding from investors such as the European Commission in December 2019.

Scientist and environmentalists said clean meat advances the battle against climate change. According to the United Nations, 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions come from raising livestock, with agriculture land a big reason for deforestation.

Other companies such as Memphis Meats and Aleph Farms are developing poultry and beef through nurturing animal cells in a petri dish, then subsequently in big bioreactors similar to vats used in beer brewing.

Cattle ranchers in the United States have called for legislation banning the word 'meat' from being used to label lab-grown or plant-based meat.

UK-based Oxford Martin School said in a 2019 study that high energy cultured meat production may push climate change more compared to some cattle farming types if the world switched to low-carbon initiatives.

Meatable's target consumers are the younger generation that are strongly inclined towards reducing the impact of climate change.

-      Reuters