How would you describe your position in MeaTech and how did you get there?

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My official position at MeaTech is Head of Business Development. I got to this position because of my background in additive manufacturing and three-dimensional printing.

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What is an accomplishment at MeaTech that you yourself are very proud of?

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I am proud of the technological achievements our printing hardware and software team has made in advancing our unique 3D bioprinter.

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What do you think the world will look like with cultured meat in the supermarkets?

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I think once cultured meat hits supermarket shelves, it won’t be thought of as anything out of the ordinary – just as ordinary as seeing conventional meat on supermarket shelves.

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Will meat from slaughtered animals disappear? What will existing businesses have to do? Will existing meat companies fall behind if they do not adapt?

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I don’t think conventional animal slaughter will disappear – the demand for meat is just too high for cultured meat to satiate it, at least with the current understanding of the alternative meat industry.

Meat companies are already adapting and have become significant investors in the alternative meat space, backing plant-based as well as cultured meat companies.

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MeaTech is located in Israel. An Arabic country that only eats halal meat and no pork. Do you have any idea how they view cultured meat and the idea of eating a hamburger made from pig cells? The pig is an unclean animal according to them.

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Israel is a multicultural country, where the majority of the population is Jewish with a large Muslim and Christian minority as well as other ethnic minorities. Jewish and Muslim law prohibits the consumption of pork.

There are a host of opinions on the matter of cultured meat derived from “non-kosher” or “non-halal” animals, that range from those giving the green light to those saying it's forbidden. 

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Where (in what culture) do you expect to see cultured meat become more readily accepted? Why?

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There are studies that show that Western countries, especially Western European countries, seem ready to accept cultured meat. This may be attributed to a generally higher awareness of the negative externalities of the meat industry and a higher affinity towards environmentally friendly meat alternatives.

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Do you rate the chances of cultured meat high? Or will it still take some time for people to accept the idea around cultured meat?

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The chance of cultured meat succeeding is promising – we already have the first sales of cultured meat products in Singapore.

As this is a new product category and novel idea, I think it will take time for consumers to get used to the idea of cultured meat but I think they will eventually come around to adopting cultured meat.

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Singapore is already ahead of most countries and cities by having its first restaurant serving cultured meat. How fast do you see this evolution happening in other countries? Or restaurants in general?

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There are two main things at play here:

1. Regulating cultured meat: Singapore was the first country to formalize regulations for cultured meat and the rest of the world is catching up. It is taking countries like the United States and Europe more time to determine just how cultured meat should be regulated but the processes are in motion.

2. Price of cultured meat: the cost of cultured meat is still too expensive for the average consumer to afford regularly purchasing it. As the cultured meat industry continues to make scientific developments, the costs will come down, and eventually, cultured meat can be made available at more affordable prices.

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In a short period of time, a lot of cultured meat companies have emerged and they are all doing separate research on this technology. Some are more engaged with chicken, others with fish, etc. Is this going to continue to increase or are there going to be more and more other types of companies doing something else?

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We are seeing new companies cropping that instead of focusing on the entire cultured meat production process, they are becoming specialized in a single step of the cultured meat production chain. For instance, there are companies that are now working on just developing the cell medium for cells and others that are just building the bioreactors for the industry.

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What will be the next big economic change that will occur with cultured meat?

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The cultured meat industry is focused on bringing down production costs. Once the industry can get the price down, it can begin to meaningfully get cultured meat products out to consumers.

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Which sectors will be hit hardest by the rise of cultured meat and which will feel a boost?

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I am not sure cultured meat will entirely displace other industries. I do see it creating an entirely new space for sustainable meat production, translating to new job opportunities.

Are we going to be dealing with factories producing cultured meat on an assembly line or are these factories more likely to become a large laboratory?

A hybrid of what you described. We anticipate the future factories of cultured meat to have an automated process with minimal human intervention, which will greatly reduce the risks of contamination.

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The production of cultured meat would also reduce emissions, but are there any negative issues economically and environmentally? Water and electricity consumption?

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Compared to the conventional meat industry, cultured meat production is anticipated to consume much fewer inputs.

How do you see the farms of the future? Slaughterhouses that partly slaughter and partly produce cultured meat.

We envision multispecies cultured meat factories that produce a range of cultured meat products. These factories will support sustainability. They should use renewable energy sources, recycle or treat their own waste, and the materials we feed the cells will be clean and ethically sourced.

We see these factories as only using cultured meat inputs, where there are no animals included in any part of the process.

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What will happen to the farmlands that used to house many animals? There will be fewer animals bred due to lower consumption of slaughtered meat so less space is needed for them? I would think that this space could be used for more labs or more greenery.

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I’m sure some of that land will continue to be farmlands, as the demand for meat is so great that cultured meat alone won’t be able to meet all of that demand.

Like your assumption, it may very well be that particular areas that are not productive farmlands, such as those in Brazil, may be allowed to return to tropical rainforests.

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Will 2050 be the year of cultured meat or even earlier? Are you already noticing something in people's buying behavior? Or when do you expect to see this?

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People are looking for sustainable, animal-free alternatives and I think the proof is in the numbers. The rise of animal alternatives has really taken off. In 2020, sales of plant-based animal alternative foods grew by 27% in the United States, reaching a whopping $7 billion!!

I believe the widespread adoption of cultured meats will really depend on getting the costs down. This may be earlier than 2050, but I can’t predict an exact year. There are companies that are already selling cultured meat but at a price that remains of reach for most consumers.

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How do you see the market trend of cultured meat?

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As cultured meat becomes more familiar to the public, I think the idea of consuming cultured meat will become more and more accepted. There have been quite a few industry studies that have predicted the cultured meat market to really take off. A recent study expected the cultured meat market to reach $2.78 billion by 2030.