London, 5. August 2013. Camera teams from all over the world point their lenses at the Petri dish in Mark Posts hands. On the first in Vitro Burger in the history of mankind, which will be presented on this day, officially. And really: the mass in the raw state looks like a real Hack. Only the processed meat comes from verhackstückeltem beef, but from the bioreactor. From stem cells, which have increased over a period of months in a nutrient solution of sugar, fat, minerals, and amino acids. Funded the 250,000-Dollar Prototype of Sergey Brin, the Google co-founders.
As the Chef de Cuisine puts the Patty in the pan, nesting it in the tent like a real meatball. Then will be asked to taste the sample. The two long Hand-chosen test-eaters have to share a 150-gram Dump; more lab meat would be too expensive, and too time-consuming. The first tester, food researcher, Hanni Rützler, cut carefully with the knife a bit, the fork to the mouth, always in the focus of the cameras. She chews, swallows the bite down. Finally, finally, falls are the expert on your judgment. How’s the Burger?
“A bit of cake”
Five years after the first tasting of the in-Vitro Burger, researchers are coming closer in Europe, the USA and Israel, your goal is always to produce meat or something deceptively similar, without killing animals. And as to prices, can also afford to consumers. Products the world needs.
So at least there is hope for the investors that put a lot of money on Mark Post, and his competitors.
The German poultry meat-group-PHW (“Wiesenhof”) has developed and invested at the beginning of the year is great in Supermeat: an Israeli Startup, the retort chicken meat. Tyson Foods, the leading meat processors in the United States, has purchased the same in three art – or substitute meat-producers: Future Meat from Israel, Beyond Meat from Los Angeles and Memphis Meats. The San Francisco-based company, which breeds the Hack – and chicken meat in the laboratory from stem cells, has also attracted Bill Gates, Virgin founder Richard Branson and the agricultural company Cargill as an investor.
And in August, the Darmstadt – based chemical and pharmaceutical group Merck, as well as the Swiss meat processor Bell got on with a spread of 7.5 million Euro in the case of Mosa Meat. The company is in Maastricht, Mark Post and the former meat Manager Peter lapse rate is established.
“Too many people want to eat a lot of meat”
All of these companies are United by a common goal: to satisfy the world’s ever-growing appetite of more and more people are meat-free. According to a UN estimate, the global demand for Meat is expected to grow in the next three decades, again to 85 percent. With conventional cattle breeding and factory farming, let the demand hardly any cover, says the 61-year-old Post in an interview with the MIRROR: “Too many people want to eat a lot of meat. We used already now more than half of our agricultural lands for the production of meat.” Therefore, the need to develop Alternatives. And learn to produce Alternatives in great mass.
250 grams of retort hack can recover Mosa Meat currently per week. That’s not enough time for three Big Macs. But with the millions of investors Mosa Meat creates two new bioreactors: 1000-Liter Tanks, where the cells en mass to grow. You should bring 50 kilos per week. And with a 25,000-Liter reactor, we’ll be able to produce in a few years, several Hundred tons per year to the kilo price of about 60 Euro, the forecasts of the Post. The Dutchman is not bred, only muscle cells, but also fat cells. “We need for the taste, the Texture, and to make the Burger juicy.”
Successful herbal Alternatives are
The large commercial success, however, just a manufacturer of meat analogues from plants. The “Impossible Burger” made of potato – and wheat protein, coconut oil and a special iron compound is already in more than 2,000 U.S. Restaurants served mostly at prices between 10 and 20 dollars. Also Air New Zealand is offering him more recently, Business-passengers. Manufacturer of Impossible Foods, from California, collected in the spring of 114 million dollars in a financing round. And the “Beyond burgers” by Beyond Meat, which is sold in the United States in Thousands of food markets for about $ 3 per Patty, more recently, also in the first German Restaurants. Its Main Ingredient: Pea Protein. Doesn’t sound tempting. But it tastes almost like “The Real Thing”.
For both categories, the lab meat as well as meat imitations, have great potential, according to Mark Post. “If the alternative products are good and cheap enough, they will displace, and, according to the flesh.”
The Burger, some manufacturers have come quite far in the Imitation of the original. Firstly, the meat is not even about the taste when you bite Into it, but also spices, flavorings, and other ingredients such as sauces, Ketchup, onions, lettuce or the bun decides the Burger. Secondly, it is for the researchers a lot easier to breed for muscle or fat fibers as a compact, appetizing piece of meat.
Up to the market maturity of a retort Steaks it will take “several years,” predicts Post. “But It is doable.”