Future Meats Is Now Making Lab-Grown Chicken for Just $1.70 Per Breast

Down from $18 per pound, six months ago.

Last July, we brought you the news that Future Meat Technologies (Future Meats) was in talks with food giant Nestlé to incorporate its lab-grown meat in future food products. The announcement was a good first step to a permanent shift away from traditional animal agriculture.

Now, Future Meat Technologies have announced that they have managed to produce cultivated chicken breast for just $7.70 per pound, (or $1.70 per 110-gram of chicken breast) down from under $18 per pound just six months ago. The move could soon see lab-grown meat making the rounds on supermarkets everywhere.

The firm also announced that it had raised $347 million in a Series B round of financing, meaning it will have plenty of money to continue on its mission to bring lab-grown meat to the masses.

"We are incredibly excited by the massive support of our global network of strategic and financial investors," said in a statement Professor Yaakov Nahmias, founder and president of Future Meat. "This financing consolidates Future Meat's position as the leading player in the cultivated meat industry, just three years after our launch. Our singular technology reduced production costs faster than anyone thought possible, paving the way for a massive expansion of operations. Our team will break ground on the first-of-its-kind, large-scale production facility in the United States in 2022."

The company already launched the world's first cultivated meat production line in Israel earlier this year, and is now looking to expand to the United States.

Future Meat describes its technology as based on stainless steel fermenters that remove waste products generated by "immortal" tissue cells in order to maintain an environment that supports the proliferation of animal cells. The firm argues that this approach is more robust and efficient than others using stem cells, resulting in the recycling of over 70% of the nutrients. 

In the past, the firm has claimed that it has the capacity to generate 1102 pounds (500 kilograms) of cultured meat every day and that its production cycle is at least 20 times faster than traditional agriculture. Could Future Meat Technologies be the lab-grown meat of the future?

Source: https://interestingengineering.com/future-meats-making-lab-grown-chicken-for-1-70-per-breast