In just two years, you may be tucking into a ‘lab burger’ and ‘test-tube chicken’ if one company has its way.
Memphis Meats has come a step closer to commercialising synthetic meat, thanks to a £13 million ($17 million) investment.
Venture capital firm DFJ, which previously backed Tesla, SpaceX and Skype, secured financial support for Memphis Meats from a groundbreaking group of investors.
This includes Microsoft mogul Bill Gates, Virgin entrepreneur Richard Branson and Cargill, one of the world’s largest agricultural firms.
The ‘clean meat’ company has already produced beef, chicken and duck directly from animal cells, without the need to raise and slaughter animals.
Test tube meat (pictured) has taken a step closer to becoming a commercial reality, thanks to a £13 million ($17 million) investment. Memphis Meats plans to use the funds to continue developing its products and to accelerate its work in scaling up ‘clean meat’ production
The investment brings to the total funding raised by ethical food firm Memphis Meats, based in San Francisco, to £17 million ($22 million).
Memphis Meats plans to use the funds to continue developing its products and to accelerate its work in scaling up clean meat production.
It hopes this will reduce production costs to levels comparable to, and ultimately below, conventional meat costs.
The company says it expects to quadruple its headcount and has already begun growing its team of chefs, scientists, creative and business people.
Memphis Meats says it hopes to bring clean meat products to consumers across the world within the next two to three years.
Its first line of products will include hot dogs, sausages, burgers and meatballs, which will all use recipes developed by award-winning chefs.
It revealed its first product, a meatball, in February 2016.
In an email to Bloomberg, Branson said: ‘I’m thrilled to have invested in Memphis Meats.
‘I believe that in 30 years or so we will no longer need to kill any animals and that all meat will either be clean or plant-based, taste the same and also be much healthier for everyone.’
Venture capital firm DFJ, which previously backed Tesla, SpaceX and Skype, secured financial support from a groundbreaking group of investors. This includes Bill Gates (left) and Richard Branson (right)
Other high profile investors include former General Electric CEO Jack Welch, Twitch co-founder Kyle Vogt and Elon Musk’s brother Kimbal Musk.
Clean meat is part of a growing trend among consumers, particularly millennials, for more sustainable food sources and a greater focus on agricultural methods.
This has seen a rising preference for organic produce, as well as a higher importance placed on animal welfare.
Dr Uma Valeti, co-founder and CEO of Memphis Meats, added: ‘The world loves to eat meat, and it is core to many of our cultures and traditions.
Memphis Meats said in March it had developed the world’s first chicken strip cultivated from self-reproducing poultry cells in a laboratory (pictured)
It hopes to have animal-free products on the market in three to four years, including burgers, hot dogs, and meatballs (pictured) grown from beef cells
‘Meat demand is growing rapidly around the world. We want the world to keep eating what it loves.
‘However, the way conventional meat is produced today creates challenges for the environment, animal welfare and human health.
‘These are problems that everyone wants to solve, and we can solve them by bringing this incredible group of partners under one tent.’
Memphis Meats aims to reinvent modern animal agriculture, which the United Nations estimates consumes on-third of the world’s grains and about a quarter of all land is used for grazing, reported The Wall Street Journal.
The firm says its cutting-edge technique produces 90 percent less greenhouse emissions, consumes less nutrients and doesn’t require antibiotics or other additives used in traditional meat production.
While generating one calorie from beef requires 23 calories in feed, Memphis Meats plans to produce a calorie of meat from just three calories in inputs.