Meat the Food of the Future in California

The port city of Oakland in California, USA has seen a new building open up, and it features a world-first: the most advanced lab-grown meat.

The immense, 16 154-square metre facility – owned by food tech company Upside Foods, formerly Memphis Meat” – opened its doors in the busy suburb of Emeryville on 4 November, and is expected to produce 22 680 kilograms of “cultured meat” for the hungry masses … once the US Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Agency provide regulatory approval.

Replete with all the bells and whistles, including renewably-powered vats – called “bioreactors” which will ultimately contain cell samples of all the animals in the food system – the building also features many windows to enhance transparency, and will be open for tours and product-testing in January 2022.

Still, there is no shying away from how environmentally-minded the company is as their focus is creating lab-grown meat, which will produce fewer greenhouse gases while decreasing the need for water, land and energy, compared to traditional production methods.

Upside Foods’ website states: “Our meat production method is inspired by nature’s basic principles: start with one cell and give it the proper nutrients to allow it to grow and multiply.”

Uma Valeti, co-founder and CEO of Upside Foods, said that the last five years have been focused on proving “that the science works” behind the new sustainable and cruelty-free food source.

He said: ”There’s nearly 100 companies across the world, in nearly every meat-producing and meat-consuming country, trying to do cultivated meat. That type of acceleration has never happened in food, especially for a completely new space.”

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