This is a list of companies involved in the sale and development of cultured meat , along with information about them.
Because the commercial production of cultured meat is as of the 2020s still a developing industry, with unprecedented technological challenges and breakthroughs or failures, the progress of pioneers and early start-ups has received much attention in the media and the scientific community. [1] The number of cultured meat companies increased from about 10 start-ups in 2016 to "98 cultured meat companies engaged in culture-related meat production" in December 2022. [1] In addition to these companies, non-profit organisations such as New Harvest, the Good Food Institute, ProVeg International [2] and the Cellular Agriculture Society advocate for, fund and research cultured meat. [3]
This section needs additional citations for verification .(October 2020) |
Note: dates in italics refer to projected dates of achievement in the future; they may shift.
Name | Founded | Area | Focus | Recent costs | Proof of concept | Pilot plant | Market entry |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Aleph Farms | 2017 [4] | Israel | Beef | Over $3,000/kg (Nov 2019 claim) [5] | Dec 2018 [4] | Feb 2022 [6] | Jan 2024 [7] |
Appleton Meats [8] [9] | 2016 | Canada | Beef | 2022~2024 (Dec 2022 claim) [1] | |||
Avant Meats | 2018 [10] | Hong Kong | Fish protein | Nov 2019 [11] | Nov 2023 [12] | ||
Because Animals [13] | 2018 | United States | Pet food | May 2019 [14] | 2022 (Aug 2021 claim) [15] | ||
Believer Meats (formerly Future Meat Technologies) | 2018 | Israel | Meat | $10/lb (Feb 2020 goal by 2022) [16] | 2019 | June 2021 [17] | 2022 (Oct 2019 claim) [18] |
Bene Meat Technologies | 2020 | Czech Republic | Pet food | Late 2024 or early 2025 (2024 claim) | |||
Biftek [19] | 2018 [20] | Turkey | Culture media | ||||
BioBQ [21] | 2018 | United States | Scaffolding | 2022 [22] | |||
BlueNalu[ citation needed ] | 2018 | United States | Seafood | Fall 2019 [23] | |||
BioTech Foods (acquired by JBS [24] ) | 2017 [25] | Spain | Pork [25] | €100/kg (July 2019 claim) [26] | 2020 [27] | mid-2024 (Dec 2021 claim) [24] | |
CellX | 2020 [28] | China | Pork | (by 2025) aiming for cost-parity with conventionally sourced pork [29] | 2021 [30] [31] | ||
Clear Meat [32] | 2019 [32] | India | Poultry [32] | c. 825 rupees/chicken (Nov 2020 claim) [33] | 2022 (May 2019 claim) [34] | ||
Cubiq Foods[ citation needed ] | 2018 | Spain | Fat | Sep 2019 [35] | |||
Cultured Food Innovation Hub [36] | 2021 [36] | Switzerland | Meat [36] | 2022 (Sept 2021 claim) [36] | |||
Eat Just (formerly Hampton Creek) | 2011 | United States | Meat | C. €50/nugget (Jan 2020 claim) [37] | Dec 2017 [38] | Constructing (Jan 2020) [39] | Dec 2020: restaurants Singapore [40] By Jan 2023: hawker centres and foodservices [41] June 2023: United States [42] |
Finless Foods | 2016 [43] | United States | Tuna | $7,000/lb (Feb 2018 claim) [44] | Sep 2017 [44] | Constructing (Oct 2021) [45] | |
Forsea Foods | 2021 | Israel | Seafood | Jan 2024 [46] | |||
Higher Steaks | 2017 | United Kingdom | Pork | £'Thousands'/kg (July 2020 claim) [47] | July 2020 [48] | ||
IntegriCulture, Inc. | 2015 | Japan | Foie gras | ¥20,000/kg (July 2019 claim) [49] | 2021 [50] | 2021 (July 2020 claim) | |
Matrix Meats[ citation needed ] | 2019 | United States | Scaffolding | 2020 [51] | |||
Meatable [52] | 2018 | Netherlands | Pork | End 2020 [53] | Nov 2023 [54] | April 2024: public tasting in EU [54] late 2024: restaurants in Singapore [54] 2025: United States (Apr 2024 claim) [42] | |
Meatleo[ citation needed ] | 2021 | Canada | Beef | ||||
Mewery[ citation needed ] | 2020 | Czech Republic | Pork | mid 2022 | 2025 | ||
Mirai Foods | 2020 | Switzerland | Beef | 'Small car'/kg (June 2020 claim) [55] | June 2020 [55] | ||
Mission Barns[ citation needed ] | 2018 | United States | Pork | ||||
Mosa Meat [56] (emerged from Maastricht University) | 2015 | Netherlands | Beef | €60/kg (Feb 2017 goal by 2020) [57] '88x cheaper' (July 2020 claim) [58] | Aug 2013 (UM) [59] | Installing (May 2020) [58] | Mid-2026 (expected regulatory approval) (Jan 2025 claim) [60] |
Motif FoodWorks | 2019 [61] | United States | Beef | End 2020 (Aug 2020 claim) [62] | Q4 2021 (beef flavouring) (Oct 2020 claim) [63] | ||
Multus Media[ citation needed ] | 2019 | United Kingdom | Culture media | October 2019 [64] | |||
New Age Eats (New Age Meats 2018–22 [65] ) | 2018– [66] 2023 [67] | United States | Pork | Sep 2018 [68] | Constructing (Oct 2021) [69] | March 2023: company shutdown [67] | |
SavorEat | 2016 [4] | Israel | Beef | Mid-2021 (restaurants) (May 2020 claim) [4] | |||
SCiFi Foods [70] (formerly Artemys Foods) | 2019 | United States | Meat | Fall 2020 [71] | June 2024: company shutdown [72] | ||
Shiok Meats | 2018 [73] | Singapore | Beef [74] | $3,500/kg (Oct 2020 claim) [75] | 2019 (shrimp) [75] | 2021 (March 2020 claim) [73] [76] [77] | |
Steakholder Foods (formerly MeaTech; subsidiary: Peace of Meat) | 2019 | Israel Belgium | Foie gras | €15,000/kg (May 2020 claim) [78] | 4 March 2020 [79] | Constructing; 2022 (May 2021 claim) [80] | 2023 (Dec 2019 claim) [81] |
SuperMeat | 2015 [4] | Israel | Poultry | $35/burger (Dec 2020 claim) [82] | 2018 [83] | November 2020 [84] | By 2022 (May 2020 claim) [4] Test restaurant Nov 2020 [84] |
Upside Foods (formerly Memphis Meats) | 2015 | United States | Poultry | $1,700/lb (Feb 2018 claim) [85] | Feb 2016 [86] | 4 November 2021 [87] [88] | June 2023: United States [42] |
Vow [89] | 2019 [90] | Australia | Kangaroo | US$1350/kg (Aug 2019 claim) [91] | Aug 2019 [91] | Oct 2022 [92] | April 2024: restaurants in Singapore [54] 2024: AU & NZ (Feb 2023 claim) [93] |
Wildtype Foods | 2016 | United States | Salmon | June 2019 [94] | 24 June 2021 [95] |
Note: data in italics refer to unfinished projects or projected capacities in the future; they may shift.
Company | Location(s) | In service | Capacity |
---|---|---|---|
Aleph Farms | Rehovot, Israel [96] | Feb 2022 [6] | (3,000 m2 [96] ). Fully operational by summer 2022 [6] |
Believer Meats (Future Meat Technologies) | Rehovot, Israel [96] | June 2021 [17] | 500 kilograms per day (182,625 kg/y) [96] |
BioTech Foods (acquired by JBS [24] ) | San Sebastián, Spain [24] (production facility) [97] | 2020 [27] mid-2024 [97] | 1,000 tonnes annually [97] (scalable to 4,000 tonnes annually) [97] |
Florianópolis, Brazil [97] | Constructing (Sep 2023) [97] | (R&D facility) [97] | |
Eat Just (Hampton Creek) | San Francisco, California [45] | Constructing (Jan 2020) [39] | (20+ 1200L bioreactors [45] ) |
Singapore [41] | Constructing plant (Jan 2023) [41] | Unknown number of 6000L bioreactors [41] | |
Finless Foods | Emeryville, California [45] | Constructing (Oct 2021) [45] | |
Meatable and DSM | Leiden, Netherlands [54] (until 2023 Delft) [52] [98] | Nov 2023 (Leiden & Singapore) [54] | 5,000 kilograms per day by 2025 [53] 200-litre bioreactors; scalable to 500-litre (Apr 2024) [54] |
Mosa Meat and NIZO food research [99] | Cultivate at Scale, Maastricht [100] | Installing (May 2020) [58] | 100 kilograms per month (1,200 kg/y) per 200L bioreactor [100] [101] (scalable to 180,000 kg/y) [100] |
Biot. Ferm. Factory, Ede [99] | Constructing (Jan 2025) [99] | Scalable to 10,000 litres, open to all Dutch start-ups [102] | |
Steakholder Foods (MeaTech / Peace of Meat) | Antwerp, Belgium [81] | 2 labs March 2020 [79] | 700 grams per production run [103] |
Antwerp, Belgium [80] | Constructing plant (May 2021) [80] | ||
SuperMeat | Ness Ziona, Israel [82] [84] | November 2020 [82] [84] | "Hundreds of kilograms" per week (June 2021) [84] |
Upside Foods (Memphis Meats) | Emeryville, California [87] | 4 November 2021 [87] | 22,680 kilograms (50,000 pounds) per year [87] [88] (scalable to 400,000 lbs/y / 181,440 kg/y) [88] |
Wildtype | San Francisco, California [45] | 24 June 2021 [95] | 50,000 pounds (22,680 kg) salmon per year [45] (scalable to 200,000 lbs/y / 90,718 kg/y) [45] |
Cultured meat, also known as cultivated meat among other names, is a form of cellular agriculture wherein meat is produced by culturing animal cells in vitro; thus growing animal flesh, moleculary identical to that of conventional livestock, outside of a living animal. Cultured meat is produced using tissue engineering techniques pioneered in regenerative medicine. It has been noted for potential in mitigating the environmental impact of meat production and addressing issues regarding animal welfare, food security and human health.
Eat Just, Inc. is a private company headquartered in San Francisco, California, US. It develops and markets plant-based alternatives to conventionally produced egg products, as well as cultivated meat products. Eat Just was founded in 2011 by Josh Tetrick and Josh Balk. It raised about $120 million in early venture capital and became a unicorn in 2016 by surpassing a $1 billion valuation. It has been involved in several highly publicized disputes with traditional egg industry interests. In December 2020, its cultivated chicken meat became the first cultured meat to receive regulatory approval in Singapore. Shortly thereafter, Eat Just's cultured meat was sold to diners at the Singapore restaurant 1880, making it the "world's first commercial sale of cell-cultured meat".
Upside Foods is a food technology company headquartered in Berkeley, California, aiming to grow sustainable cultured meat. The company was founded in 2015 by Uma Valeti (CEO), Nicholas Genovese (CSO), and Will Clem. Valeti was a cardiologist and a professor at the University of Minnesota.
This page is a timeline of major events in the history of cellular agriculture. Cellular agriculture refers to the development of agricultural products - especially animal products - from cell cultures rather than the bodies of living organisms. This includes in vitro or cultured meat, as well as cultured dairy, eggs, leather, gelatin, and silk. In recent years a number of cellular animal agriculture companies and non-profits have emerged due to technological advances and increasing concern over the animal welfare and rights, environmental, and public health problems associated with conventional animal agriculture.
The Good Food Institute (GFI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that promotes plant- and cell-based alternatives to animal products, particularly meat, dairy, and eggs. It was created in 2016 by the nonprofit organization Mercy For Animals with Bruce Friedrich as the chief executive officer. GFI has more than 150 staff across six affiliates in the United States, India, Israel, Brazil, Asia Pacific, and Europe. GFI was one of Animal Charity Evaluators' four "top charities" for animal advocacy in 2022.
SuperMeat is an Israeli startup company working to develop a "meal-ready" chicken cultured meat product created through the use of cell culture.
Cellular agriculture focuses on the production of agricultural products from cell cultures using a combination of biotechnology, tissue engineering, molecular biology, and synthetic biology to create and design new methods of producing proteins, fats, and tissues that would otherwise come from traditional agriculture. Most of the industry is focused on animal products such as meat, milk, and eggs, produced in cell culture rather than raising and slaughtering farmed livestock which is associated with substantial global problems of detrimental environmental impacts, animal welfare, food security and human health. Cellular agriculture is a field of the biobased economy. The most well known cellular agriculture concept is cultured meat.
Mosa Meat is a Dutch food technology company, headquartered in Maastricht, Netherlands, creating production methods for cultured meat. It was founded in May 2016.
From Fauna, formerly known as the Cellular Agriculture Society, is an international 501(c)(3) organization that has been involved in research, funding, advancement of, and most recently education in, cellular agriculture. It is based in San Francisco, and was founded by Kris Spiros in the early 2010s.
Finless Foods, or Finless for short, is an American biotechnology company aimed at cultured fish, particularly bluefin tuna.
Aleph Farms is a cellular agriculture company active in the food technology space. It was co-founded in 2017 by the Israeli food-tech incubator "The Kitchen Hub" of Strauss Group Ltd., and Prof. Shulamit Levenberg of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and is headquartered in Rehovot, Israel.
Vow is an Australian company that grows cultured meat for commercial distribution, and is headquartered in Sydney, Australia.
ProVeg Incubator is a business incubator based in the Tiergarten district of Berlin, Germany. It was established in 2018 as part of the wider ProVeg International non-governmental organisation.
Believer Meats, from 2018 to 2022 known as Future Meat Technologies, or Future Meat for short, is a biotechnology firm which produces cultured meat from chicken cells and is working on cultured lamb kebabs and beef burgers. Based in Israel, its main office is located in Jerusalem, while its primary production facility is operating in Rehovot. Future Meat Technologies mainly seeks to supply hardware and cell lines to manufacturers of cultured meat rather than directly selling food products to consumers. In November 2022, Future Meat Technologies rebranded to Believer Meats.
Wildtype is an American seafood company that produces cultivated seafood from fish cells. Its headquarters is located in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco, California and includes a former microbrewery that has been converted into Wildtype's first Fishery where their cultivated seafood is produced. Wildtype's first product is cultivated Pacific salmon that will offer several benefits when compared to conventionally-harvested fish.
Steakholder Foods is a company which develops 3D bioprinting technologies for usage in cellular agriculture. Based in Israel, it has a Belgian subsidiary called Peace of Meat, with which it produces cultured meat, with a focus on cultivating foie gras. It was originally founded in 2019 as MeaTech 3D Ltd., or MeaTech for short.
Meatable is a Dutch biotechnology company aimed at cultured meat, particularly pork.
Mirai Foods is a food technology company which produces cultivated meat from beef cells. It is headquartered in Wädenswil in the canton of Zurich in Switzerland, and was founded in 2019.
Bene Meat Technologies a.s. (BMT) is a Czech biotechnology start-up focused on research and development of technology for the production of cultivated meat on an industrial scale. It cooperates with scientific institutions and companies in the Czech Republic and abroad. The company has its laboratories on the first floor of the Cube building in Vokovice, Prague.
The Shojinmeat Project is a citizen science movement, loosely-structured non-profit organization, and art project about cultured meat, a subset of cellular agriculture. Their approach to developing and popularizing cultured meat has been noted as unique from efforts in the field before it, in that it envisions cultured meat as something that can be made at home with a process understood by its consumer, analogous to home brewing. The Shojinmeat Project was created in Japan by Yuki Hanyu, but has become an internationally collaborative effort welcoming a variety of talent.
[Aleph Farms Ltd.] is also working on a pilot plant. Companies such as BioTech Foods, SuperMeat and Eat Just have already started testing sites.
The EFSA's risk assessment of the product is expected to take around 18 months.
Shiok's proto-shrimp costs $5,000 a kilogram, which is about $2,268 a pound, mostly due to the price of the nutrient fluids needed to feed the cells. Access to more affordable nutrients has reduced the cost of Shiok's meat to $3,500 a kilogram, or about $1,588 a pound. (...) Shiok's shumai, for example, cost $300 apiece. (...) The goal is to make Shiok's shrimp 100 times cheaper by the first half of next year.