Introduction
I haven’t paid attention to the Precision Fermentation and Cell Agriculture space for a while, but a recent article by Mosa Meat compelled me to relook at it.
For those that don’t know :
- Precision Fermentation is a production process in which biological molecules(e.g. proteins) are manufactured using microorganisms and;
- Cell Agriculture is the production of agricultural products from cell cultures using a combination of biotechnology to create proteins, fats, tissues, etc.
Personally I like the term Clean Meat.
A key part of the press release was this:
“We have officially reached a critical cost-parity milestone.”
This is huge! They’re able to produce a precision fermented burger party for $2.50 matching that of traditional meat burgers in high-end restaurants.
Read the Mosa Meat press release👉Securing €15M and Cracking the Cost Code
RethinkX
In 2019 RethinkX published a report called “Rethinking Food & Agriculture 2020-2030 (2019) : The Second Domestication of Plants and Animals, the Disruption of the Cow, and the Collapse of Industrial Livestock Farming”
This was profound read for me because it made me realize that animal agriculture will come to an end much faster than I had imagined, and that the mechanism of that collapse was something I could never have expected.
The idea is that Precision Fermentation and Cell Agriculture will produce animal based products at a fraction of cost with vastly superior quality to traditional animal agriculture due to falling cost curves brought about by exponential technology improvements. Basically the technology gets so good that it’s ridiculously cheap to grow meat. A key aspect to note is that the report predicted that by 2025 clean meat would reach price parity with traditional meat.
Now, there is a difference between price parity and cost parity. Cost parity means the producer’s cost to make a new product (materials, labour, overhead, etc.) and Price parity means the customer-facing price (the sticker price in the shop or menu). There are implications for the differences. But irrespective, I think that mosa meat hitting cost parity is an incredible milestone to have achieved.
Here’s a graph below from one of their reports highlighting the predicted price drops. This is in line with Mosa Meats own data in that it cost them €250,000 in 2013 to create a burger patty, whereas now it costs them €2.50 – an incredible 99.999% cost reduction in 13 years!
These prices drops come about due to falling costs of production. Interestingly, in 2019 the report predicted a price of $10/kg of protein by 2025 for clean meat, and that’s exactly what Mosa Meat managed to achieve. Their burger patty price is now $2.50 with a patty weighing between 220-150 grams. I eat very little meat so I don’t know much about burger patties and their weight, but it looks like RethinkX nailed that prediction.
Wrights Law & Moores Law
Many people will have heard of Moore’s Law, the idea that computer processing power doubles every 18 months. It’s the reason why a cell phone in the 80’s was the size of brick with capacity for 20 phone contacts, and now a cell phone is a full blown computer that can run your entire life. It’s this exponential growth rate of technology that allows for the amazing advances that we see today like AI and robotics.
Wrights Law is similar, but more applicable to manufacturing than computing. It came about in 1936 when Theodore Wright, an engineer noticed that every time total aircraft production doubled, the required labor time for a new aircraft fell by 20% i.e. you increase production and price drops.
This and other ideas highlight that in production, if scale is achieved through improvements in process, technology or innovation then price drops.
In the case of Mosa Meat they’ve secured an additional €15 million in funding, bringing their total capital raised over the past two years to €58 million. They’re expected to increased their bioreactors sizes from the current 1,000L to 5,000L. Therefore they’ll increase the amount of meat they produce by 5x.
Consider that loosely according to Wright’s Law, when you double production you drop price by 20%. If Mosa Meat increases meat production by 5x, you could theoretically expect the burger patty price to drop to at least $1.60. That puts in direct price competition with a burger patty from Walmart that costs $1.56. One more doubling of production clean meat is officially cheaper than traditional meat. That would spell the end of the traditional meat producers.
Will Meat companies collapse
So it seems highly plausible that traditional animal agriculture will come an end. But will meat companies collapse? After much reading and consideration, the answer is no. In fact, I reckon traditional animal agriculture will collapse, but meat companies like JBS, Tyson, Cargill, and National Beef will do extremely well.
Tyson has got a phrase on it’s website that says it all : “Tyson Foods has one of the largest and most robust protein portfolios in the food industry”. The message is clear – Tyson is a protein company and not a meat company. Food companies have always been exceptionally technology savvy; they’ve always been introducing new ways of managing food; all the way from how food is grown to how it’s processed. This interesting characteristic sets it apart from the fossil fuel industry in that they refuse to change, whereas the food industry will hop on a new technology once it proves it’s value.
That’s why I believe meat companies will embrace Precision Fermentation and Cellular Agriculture wholeheartedly. These companies are already trying many variations of protein products combining traditional meat with clean meat and plant based meat – they’re playing with the configurations to see what satisfies the market while increasing food safety and reducing costs. And as per RethinkX these products will first be B2B before B2C.
Speculation
China’s five plans have delivered impressive growth for its people. It’s interesting to note that its 15th five year plan focuses heavily on self reliance and reducing dependencies on other countries. It’s also brought 800 million people out of poverty in recent years, and those people will want meat as is typically the case with increasing incomes. There’s no doubt in my mind that China will also drive development and adoption of clean meat as way to become self reliant and feed it’s people.
Apparently the US Dept of Defense spends a third of its R&D grant budget from the DBIMP(Distributed Bioindustrial Manufacturing Program) on food. Out of the initial 34 awards made under the program, 12 of them, representing a total of $60 million, are directed towards food innovation(diversified proteins, sustainable oils, fungi and fermented products, improved production methods, fermented eggs , microbes, etc.). The DoD is interested in these innovations for food security as a national security issue. Elysabeth Alfano covers this and other related topics on the PlantBased Business Hour podcast. Although I don’t believe the US government will drive clean meat forward, I think the seeds that have been planted by it will lead to very interesting developments.
Veganism Failed
As much as it dismays me say this – Veganism has failed spectacularly in it’s stated goal of bringing about animal liberation. In it’s 80 year history the amount of meat consumed in the world has exploded with veganism doing little to dent that trajectory.
One of the ways in which I’ve shifted mindset, is to evaluate endeavors based on whether or not they make massive strides in bringing about animal liberation. As much I’m not an animal lover, I do think animal liberation is a good metric for the progress of society. Veganism has failed in this regard, but I’m very happy to see that Clean Meat will achieve this goal.
There are numerous examples of technology bringing about animal welfare; the invention of kerosene destroyed the whale oil industry, the invention of the automobile destroyed the horse industry and the invention of synthetic insulin stopped millions of pigs from being killed. Technology can have a profound positive influence on the welfare of all animals including us human beings.
A couple of brilliant books to read on this topic are:
- Clean Meat by Paul Shapiro
- Patterns of Progress by Brad Libby
- Stellar by Tony Seba and James Arbib
- Mizora: A World of Women by Mary E Bradley
- Brighter: Optimism, Progress and the future of Environmentalism by Adam Dorr
My predictions
The future will be very strange and yet very familiar. I want to make one prediction that I think is quite compelling. I think that in the future we will grow meat in our homes and restaurants.
Restaurants will be the first to do this. The bioreactor that houses the bacteria that creates the proteins will become so small, compact and efficient that they will fit into medium sized restaurants allowing you to get any type and variation of meat that you desire. This limitless variation of meat will empower chefs to be ever more creative with their gastronomic creations. In this world, traditional animal agriculture is over, but the consumer choice will be overwhelming.
Shortly thereafter once the technology improves yet again, it will be viable for home usage where your meat bioreactor will sit alongside your toaster, coffee maker and air fryer. When this happens the notion of killing animals for meat will be as antiquated as arranging hay for your horse to eat.
Centuries ago business would haul gigantic blocks of ice from the artic so that people could have ice cubes. That all came to an abrupt end when some scientist figured out refrigeration. Today we make ice in our fridges, tomorrow it will be meat in our kitchen-top bioreactors.
Conclusion
I was pleasantly shocked to realize that China’s consumption of coal plateaued this year in 2025, and that solar overtook most sources of energy generation around the world. That’s incredible! Intellectually was aware of the changes and knew the data, but to actually know that this incredible feat has happened is still astounding to me.
2025 is the year that renewables whipped fossils fuels, and its also the year that clean meat became cost competitive. One technology just displaced an old one, and now another technology is set to do it again.
I’m now hopeful that we’re on the right track, and that liberation is at hand for both people and animals; and these developments will bring about an understanding that we’re all earthlings.
The future looks a little bit brighter.
Photo by Frederick Medina on Unsplash
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