The Bezos Earth Fund has announced an initial $60 million commitment to establish a fund to improve alternative meats by making them cheaper and taste better.
Jeff Bezos' fiancee, Lauren Sanchez, who is also vice chair of the Bezos Earth Fund, announced on Tuesday, March 19, the creation of the Bezos Centers for Sustainable Protein (BCSP).
The $60 million will fund the creation of BCSP research centers in multiple universities over the next five years. These research centers will focus on reducing the cost of manufacturing fake meat and boosting the quality and nutritional value of so-called "sustainable protein products." The initial investment will also go toward initiatives to enhance the flavor and texture of artificial meat. (Related: Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos pushing for a new lab-grown meat industry that harvests the blood of unborn cow fetuses.)
"There are also enormous opportunities to enhance the texture and boost flavor through innovation in cell biology and engineering," said the Bezos Earth Fund in a statement.
The initial investment is part of the Bezos Earth Fund's commitment to provide $1 billion to "food transformation." This has seen Bezos' vast fortune be directed to projects related to reducing methane emissions, boosting the seaweed farming industry and researching alternatives to crop burning, among others.
Consumers still unlikely to transition to eating fake meat due to cost, taste and nutrition
In a press release published by the Bezos Earth Fund, the fund noted that the initial investment would apply to innovation on all kinds of alternative proteins, including plant-based, lab-grown and fermented meats. Funding will be directed to any initiatives that target the "major barriers" to the industry's growth, those being lowering costs, increasing quality and boosting nutritional benefits.
These issues have significantly stifled the growth of the cultivated meat industry. So far, only two such companies have received the Food and Drug Administration's approval to sell their fake meat products, showing that these kinds of food items are still a long way from entering the mainstream market affordably.
A study from the nonprofit Good Food Institute also found that consumers are mostly concerned by price and then by the taste of the food items they eat and the main reasons why they are discouraged from purchasing plant-based products.
To date, cultivated meat costs about $17 per pound to produce, which could make them cost at least $40 per pound once they reach grocery stores. Plant-based beef costs twice as much as normal beef, and four times that of chicken. These prices have made investments drop by 78 percent in 2023.
In her announcement of the BCSP, Sanchez claimed "innovations" were necessary in the lab-grown meat industry to allow the world to "feed 10 billion people with healthy, sustainable protein throughout this century."
"This will need a ton of innovation," she added. "We're investing heavily in [the] livestock sector and inventions that will give customers meat options that are better for the Earth."
Learn the latest developments in the lab-grown meat industry at FakeMeat.news.
Watch this clip from "The HighWire" as host Del Bigtree and co-host investigative journalist Jefferey Jaxen discuss the collapse of the fake meat industry.
This video is from the channel The HighWire with Del Bigtree on Brighteon.com.
More related stories:
Global fake food market projected to be worth up to $3 trillion in the near future.
Fake meat companies are failing as consumers abandon processed plant-based alternatives to real meat.
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