The end of cows?

[bjn]

Cleaning up has its most recent episode interviewing Jim Mellon, Executive Director at Agronomics, who specialise in investing in precision fermentation and cultured meat. They are going to bring their cultured chicken to market in the USA this year after FDA approval, and they are going to bring cultured meat pet food to market in the UK and Europe.

https://www.cleaningup.live/ep136-jim-m ... -moos-law/

ETA: transcript on the website.

[Al Capone Junior]

Cattle farmers are an especially powerful lobby (esp here in tx) so expect the transition to go about as smoothly as gas/oil to renewables.

However I'm all for it. There are decent veggie burgers around, decent meat substitute burgers, decent vegan patties on occasion, and I'll eat pretty much any of them, sometimes substituting them for actual meat. I am consciously trying not to eat a lot of cow specifically. But I'd love to fast forward the whole thing.

Not that a medium rare ribeye isn't one of the tasty-est things in existence...

What I really want is aqua advantage salmon. I'm very happy they sold out quickly, but save some for me!

[bjn]

Where some of this will really take off is in processed foods and side markets, as opposed to direct to consumer meat/fish/dairy products. eg: if you can synthesise egg proteins cheaper than chicken eggs, all the bakers are going to buy your stuff and so reduce the market for eggs. Similarly for milk and other animal products.

Another example, people are already growing sheets of skin/collagen cells for use as leather. The sheets can be grown to any size and will be of a consistent quality. Selling cow skins is a nice little side earner for cow farmers, if that goes away they have to charge more for the rest of the cow to stay in business.

I see the meat/fish/dairy market, especially at the low end, being nibbled away at the sides, while they are reacting to the head on assaults in the burger bars.

[shpalman]

The analysis of lobbying, subsidies and regulations showed that livestock farmers in the EU received 1,200 times more public funding than plant-based meat or cultivated meat groups.

[bjn]

Following on from the OP in this thread, we can now make casein via precision fermentation, one more step on the road to cowless dairy products. Awaiting regulatory approval. Yay! Vegan cheeses will soon get an awful lot nicer. Use it in synthi-milk as well, no need for soya proteins. If/when it can be made cheaper than cow derived casein, industrial uses will adopt is, as well as casein used as a food additive.

Cheese is pretty much the thing stopping me going vegan.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... mpany-says

[Grumble]

This is clearly the actual way precision fermentation happens, not replacing entire foodstuffs but individual proteins, at least at first.

[dyqik]

Following on from the OP in this thread, we can now make casein via precision fermentation, one more step on the road to cowless dairy products. Awaiting regulatory approval. Yay! Vegan cheeses will soon get an awful lot nicer. Use it in synthi-milk as well, no need for soya proteins. If/when it can be made cheaper than cow derived casein, industrial uses will adopt is, as well as casein used as a food additive.

Cheese is pretty much the thing stopping me going vegan.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... mpany-says

I'd like to award a small prize to whoever came up with the "All Yeast No Beast" tagline at the end of the article.

[Woodchopper]

Cell-cultivated meat could be on sale in the UK within a few years, the food regulator has said, with applications for lab-grown steak, beef, chicken and foie gras already submitted, while another 15 applications are expected in the next two years.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) was awarded £1.6m of government funding on Tuesday to develop an efficient safety assessment process for the novel foods. It said the UK was an attractive market as it had a high number of vegans, vegetarians and flexitarians, a higher openness to new foods than many other European countries and a large financial sector to back startup companies.

[...]

While cultivated meat had the same cells as slaughtered meat, ensuring it was safe for human consumption was still vital, said Prof Robin May, the chief scientific adviser at the FSA. “Companies are obviously aiming for products indistinguishable from the animal equivalent, but the way they are achieving that is fundamentally different.”

The cells are grown in a liquid and prompted to develop into muscle, blood and fat tissue. “You do that typically with a very complex cocktail of growth media and growth factors,” he said. “Are they all safe? Because there might be some left in the final product. Also, are there any genetic changes in the cells that might make them in some way hazardous?”

But May said the developments were exciting: “There is lots of potential here for all sorts of benefits in terms of welfare, sustainability, health, and just consumer choice.”

The FSA’s project to develop the assessment criteria will take two years and involve discussion with academic experts and the companies. This is intended to lead to an efficient approval process being established that would be expected to take companies two years to complete. However, applications already submitted to the FSA are being analysed currently.

The project is the first of its type outside South Korea. “Many of the techniques used to create cell-cultivated products have been used to create cell-cultivated medicines previously,” said May. “So for us, it’s a huge advantage to be able to draw on that massive amount of evidence.”

[...]

In July, the UK became the first country in Europe to approve cultivated meat for use in pet food, after Meatly’s chicken was approved by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Animal and Plant Health Agency.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -regulator

[Woodchopper]

Meat, dairy and sugar grown in a lab could be on sale in the UK for human consumption for the first time within two years, sooner than expected.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is looking at how it can speed up the approval process for lab-grown foods.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2ern1zjkvyo

Dairy looks interesting as it may be easier to make products that consumers won’t notice are different from what they are used to.

[Woodchopper]

World’s first lab-grown meat pet treats launched in the UK

Pet treats with cultivated meat are now available for purchase in the United Kingdom. The treats, made by Meatly—a London-based startup producing cultivated meat for pets—in collaboration with plant-based dog food brand The Pack, contain plant-based ingredients along with cultivated chicken meat.1

At a cost of £3.49 ($4.30 USD) for 50 grams, the treats, called “Chick Bites,” are currently being sold in small samples through a limited release in one Pets at Home location in London, England, a pet retail chain of 457 stores in the UK.1,2 Pets at Home, along with Agronomics—a UK investor in cultivated meat—are among Meatly’s largest investors.3

[…]

With the product release at Pets at Home, the retailer is now the first to sell pet food made from cultivated meat.1 According to a company announcement, Meatly has plans to raise additional funds to scale production and broaden the availability of Meatly Chicken in the next 3 to 5 years and plans to continue collaborating with The Pack and Pets at Home.1

[…]

Meatly Chicken is produced from a single sample of cells taken from one chicken egg.1 Over the course of a week, the chicken egg cells are fed with a blend of amino acids, vitamins, and minerals, resulting in meat with a texture resembling chicken pâté.2

https://www.dvm360.com/view/world-s-fir ... -in-the-uk

[Woodchopper]

The price of the lab grown dog treats is about £70 per kilo. Asda sells dog treats at between £1.76 per kilo to about £50 per kilo. So it seems that there should be a market if it’s possible to persuade consumers that it’s a premium product.

[bjn]

The price of the lab grown dog treats is about £70 per kilo. Asda sells dog treats at between £1.76 per kilo to about £50 per kilo. So it seems that there should be a market if it’s possible to persuade consumers that it’s a premium product.

If/when it scales, prices will come down. Early adopters might be richer vegan/veggie dog owners who want to include their animals. The cheaper stuff is generally abattoir sweepings, so it might not be that hard to persuade folks that it’s better than the bottom end.

[Martin Y]

The price of the lab grown dog treats is about £70 per kilo. Asda sells dog treats at between £1.76 per kilo to about £50 per kilo. So it seems that there should be a market if it’s possible to persuade consumers that it’s a premium product.

Their Extra Special ribeye steak is only £26/kg, in case your dog wants to suggest a counter offer.

[dyqik]

You should probably scale that by "treat-servings" rather than per kg. Some dog treats are very light weight pieces (which is good if you are training and need to use a lot of them), while a treat sized chunk of steak would be rather heavier.

[Woodchopper]

The price of the lab grown dog treats is about £70 per kilo. Asda sells dog treats at between £1.76 per kilo to about £50 per kilo. So it seems that there should be a market if it’s possible to persuade consumers that it’s a premium product.

If/when it scales, prices will come down. Early adopters might be richer vegan/veggie dog owners who want to include their animals. The cheaper stuff is generally abattoir sweepings, so it might not be that hard to persuade folks that it’s better than the bottom end.

Yes, it should come down in price as production scales up.

That said, as far as I know lab grown meat isn’t considered to be a vegan or vegetarian product.

[bjn]

That said, as far as I know lab grown meat isn’t considered to be a vegan or vegetarian product.

That's going to be a weird one for alot of people. I consider myself veggie, and depending on how it was grown, I'd be open to eating vat grown meat. Not that I particularly liked red meat though.

[Woodchopper]

That said, as far as I know lab grown meat isn’t considered to be a vegan or vegetarian product.

That's going to be a weird one for alot of people. I consider myself veggie, and depending on how it was grown, I'd be open to eating vat grown meat. Not that I particularly liked red meat though.

Not my opinion but here’s something on why the Vegan Society objects to lab grown meat: https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/is-lab-grown-meat-vegan/

Seems to come down to a belief that eating meat is still wrong wherever it comes from.

[Grumble]

The price of the lab grown dog treats is about £70 per kilo. Asda sells dog treats at between £1.76 per kilo to about £50 per kilo. So it seems that there should be a market if it’s possible to persuade consumers that it’s a premium product.

If/when it scales, prices will come down. Early adopters might be richer vegan/veggie dog owners who want to include their animals. The cheaper stuff is generally abattoir sweepings, so it might not be that hard to persuade folks that it’s better than the bottom end.

Yes, it should come down in price as production scales up.

That said, as far as I know lab grown meat isn’t considered to be a vegan or vegetarian product.

A large part of the current cost is due to using pharma grade feedstock, though that might not apply to the pet food stuff

[bjn]

That said, as far as I know lab grown meat isn’t considered to be a vegan or vegetarian product.

That's going to be a weird one for alot of people. I consider myself veggie, and depending on how it was grown, I'd be open to eating vat grown meat. Not that I particularly liked red meat though.

Not my opinion but here’s something on why the Vegan Society objects to lab grown meat: https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/is-lab-grown-meat-vegan/

Seems to come down to a belief that eating meat is still wrong wherever it comes from.

Yeah, reading that, like I said, weird. Not so much the definition of vegan being "not derived from animals in any way", because words mean what they mean, but from the ethics point of view. They are more hung up on anything being consumed that is directly derived from animals as opposed to wider harms. It's not as if intensive agriculture of cereals, fruits and vegetables doesn't kill animals and affect ecosystems.

That said, whether lab grown meat actually produces less harms than raising live stock, let alone alternative vegan sources of protein, I have no idea.

[Opti]

Me and ddb have been vegetarians for years (probably over 30) I would certainly try meat protein not obtained by the slaughter of animals, ddb's not so sure yet. I'd still find it difficult to eat a traditional shape cut of pretend meat.

They can pull my dairy products from my cold dead hands though. I fully understand the cruel nature of the dairy industry, but I don't think I could ever stop eating cheese.

[Grumble]

Me and ddb have been vegetarians for years (probably over 30) I would certainly try meat protein not obtained by the slaughter of animals, ddb's not so sure yet. I'd still find it difficult to eat a traditional shape cut of pretend meat.

They can pull my dairy products from my cold dead hands though. I fully understand the cruel nature of the dairy industry, but I don't think I could ever stop eating cheese.

Milk proteins and fats might well be made by precision fermentation soon, so cheese might not come from cows forever.

[Martin_B]

Me and ddb have been vegetarians for years (probably over 30) I would certainly try meat protein not obtained by the slaughter of animals, ddb's not so sure yet. I'd still find it difficult to eat a traditional shape cut of pretend meat.

They can pull my dairy products from my cold dead hands though. I fully understand the cruel nature of the dairy industry, but I don't think I could ever stop eating cheese.

Milk proteins and fats might well be made by precision fermentation soon, so cheese might not come from cows forever.

Milk doesn't have to come from cows. It can come from goats, and sheep and Venezuelan beavers.

[Tessa K]

Me and ddb have been vegetarians for years (probably over 30) I would certainly try meat protein not obtained by the slaughter of animals, ddb's not so sure yet. I'd still find it difficult to eat a traditional shape cut of pretend meat.

They can pull my dairy products from my cold dead hands though. I fully understand the cruel nature of the dairy industry, but I don't think I could ever stop eating cheese.

Milk proteins and fats might well be made by precision fermentation soon, so cheese might not come from cows forever.

Milk doesn't have to come from cows. It can come from goats, and sheep and Venezuelan beavers.

Also buffalos.

[Grumble]

Milk proteins and fats might well be made by precision fermentation soon, so cheese might not come from cows forever.

Milk doesn't have to come from cows. It can come from goats, and sheep and Venezuelan beavers.

Also buffalos.

Buffalo cows. Also, goat cows, sheep cows and beaver cows.

[Brightonian]

Milk doesn't have to come from cows. It can come from goats, and sheep and Venezuelan beavers.

Also buffalos.

Buffalo cows. Also, goat cows, sheep cows and beaver cows.

Also Tesco, Sainsbury's and Aldi. Personally I've always found it easier to get milk from supermarkets, but that's just me.