US food Technology Company Memphis Meats has managed to raise a substantial amount of money in its new round of financing. Unlike other food tech companies that are developing plant-based meat alternatives, Memphis Meats is actually growing real meat from actual animal cells.
The five-year-old startup managed to raise another $161 million in its latest funding round, with a number of endorsements from some big-name companies and investors. Well-known investment companies such as SoftBank Group, Temasek, and Norwest led the company's latest funding round.
Some of the better-known backers of the funding round included Bill Gates and Richard Branson. Traditional meat companies such as Tyson and Cargill also joined in to back the company.
As a way to cut back carbon emissions and to further make the process of producing meat much greener, Memphis Meats has developed a method of actually growing different kinds of meat from samples of animal cells. The meats are grown in mass inside laboratories, which negates the need for actually slaughtering live animals. According to the company, its cultured meat products are basically indistinguishable from traditional meats that are bought from butchers.
So far, Memphis Meat has been able to successfully grow meats such as pork, beef, chicken, and duck inside its labs. The technology it uses can, however, be applied to other types of protein-based meats such as seafood. Memphis Meat also claims that it can produce very specific varieties of meat such as lean beef of grass-fed meats.
The company's technology is unfortunately still in its infancy and it might still be a while before the company can produce its products to become competitively priced when compared to traditional meat. The biggest hurdle however will likely be consumer sentiment over its products. Unlike plant-based meat alternatives, which are now increasingly becoming common, cultured meats are still very new to consumers.
The USDA and FDA have already caught wind of the technology and announced plans to place regulations on these types of food. By being recognized by regulators, these types of meats are now close to becoming commercially available. The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service have previously mentioned that it is still building a regulatory framework for cell-cultured products and it currently doesn't have a timeframe for its completion.
Memphis Meats CEO Uma Valeti had mentioned in an interview that the company's products have gained a lot of interest as it is essentially transforming what was considered to be science fiction into reality. Valeti admitted that it was initially very hard to convince investors in the company's "hypothetical" product but years of hard work have finally resulted in a technology that may very well revolutionize how and where we get our meat.
