Lab-grown meat is proving to be a spectacular failure, and producers are becoming so desperate that many are pushing for a public subsidy to stay afloat.
Preliminary data from the venture capital firm AgFunder shows that funding in the lab meats sector fell by 78% in 2023 to reach $177 million, down from $807 million in 2022 and a peak of $989 million in 2021.
In response to the steep drop in investments, many lab meat startups have been slashing staff numbers and consolidating operations, while others are closing their doors entirely. Now, they want taxpayers to shoulder the burden of helping them right the ship after taking a chance on something that many of us knew from the start was doomed to fail.
At the Future Food-Tech Innovation Summit that was recently held in London, cultivated meat industry reps insisted that governments need to get on board.
Mosa Meat Vice President of Global Public Affairs Robert Jones warned that “[t]here’s a valley of death we’re not going to cross as an industry without a massive infusion of public investment.”
For example, Poland recently gave a 2 million euro grant to a company producing cultured meat. In 2022, the Dutch government announced it would give $65 million of public funding to support meat cultivation from cells and the production of animal-friendly dairy.
Proponents of alternative proteins have complained that the USDA has only put $124 million toward subsidizing them, while the USDA has given livestock operators subsidies of more than $59 billion.
"One of the biggest failures in food history"
Once touted as the solution to everything from global warming to hunger, it is becoming more and more difficult to ignore the serious flaws in lab-grown meat. Not only is it not quite as environmentally friendly as its producers want us to think, but the health risks it poses could be significant.
Food consultant Julian Mellentin said: “It’s going to go down as one of the biggest failures in food history. Business schools will be presenting lessons on lab-grown meat.”
The process of creating lab-grown meat requires very expensive nutrients and exacting lab conditions. And its production process, which supporters initially claimed reduced CO2 emissions compared to livestock farming, has been shown to increase emissions by anywhere from 4 to 25 times those of traditional meat – not to mention the fact that cows enhance the land they graze on.
In addition, the effects of consuming this non-food on human health are not known, and it will take many years before the long-term risks it poses become apparent.
However, an even more pressing problem for lab-grown meat is the lack of demand, with many consumers turning up their nose at the thought of eating this Frankenfood.
Mellentin noted: “Even the test marketing has stopped, because nobody wanted the product – it’s just too weird. People are very reluctant to put a technology into their bodies.”
Regulators are taking a cynical view of lab-grown meat
Florida and Alabama have already banned the sales of cultivated meat and seafood, while Iowa schools are prohibited from buying it. It is also expected to be restricted, at least to some degree, at the federal level. Internationally, French lawmakers have introduced a bill banning the meat, while Italy has already implemented a ban on selling it.
Much like many of the other so-called green initiatives that aren’t the great alternatives they pretend to be, such as electric vehicles, lab-grown meat is failing to live up to its promises and is proving to be worse than the traditional meat it hopes to replace in every possible way.
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