“It’s a massive challenge” – Good Meat’s Josh Tetrick on scaling up production of cultivated meat

San Francisco’s Eat Just is best known for its plant-based, faux-egg product Just Egg but it is also developing cell-based meat through its Good Meat arm. 

In December 2020, Good Meat became the first company to win approval to sell meat created in a laboratory from cells when it was given the green light by Singapore’s regulator. It has since won similar approval in the US, alongside another company, Upside Foods. 

Just Food’s Andy Coyne talked to the company’s CEO, Josh Tetrick, about the next steps for Good Meat and the hurdles that still stand in the way of growth for this exciting but nascent industry. 

Josh Tetrick: Good Meat is a subsidiary of Eat Just, which produces Just Egg. It is a separate legal entity which has its own team members and raises its own capital. But it has access to the distribution, resources, talent etc [of the larger group].

Josh Tetrick: It’s similar to Singapore in 2020. We are selling in small volumes, very small volumes. We are trying to do it in a cost-effective way. Ultimately, we want to make millions of pounds of cultivated meat but we need to do a lot of work on things like cell density and reducing the cost of the growth medium. We are making good progress. In Singapore, we have relationships with a few chefs. In the US, it is just one so far. Thankfully, people are saying it tastes like [traditional] chicken and they like the idea that they can eat meat without feeling bad about it. 

Josh Tetrick: It is not necessarily cheaper than beef or pork but it is the most consumed animal protein locally. We hope to have approval for beef from the FDA by the end of the year. So far, in the US and Singapore, it’s just for chicken.

Josh Tetrick: With the [growth] medium but also with cell density. The growth medium costs are too high because companies like ours only have the ability to sell in two places. We are not purchasing a lot of this medium. The volumes we are talking about are so small that we have to make assumptions about how much we will need in year three or ten years in the future. If we produce more, the price will go down considerably. There’s no doubt it is a massive challenge to be able to produce it on a large scale. This is a significant challenge for cultivated meat. ADM can help on the growth medium side. It sells a number of components in animal feed. Some are amino acids which could be used in cultivated meat.

Josh Tetrick: Along with the size of infrastructure we need.

Josh Tetrick: It’s not sufficient enough to buy large-scale facilities.

Josh Tetrick: Investors differ but they mostly understand this is a long-term project with long-term challenges. There is an awareness that this is not going to happen tomorrow. It will take time to [overcome] the many challenges and uncertainties.

Josh Tetrick: The vast majority of meat Americans eat today was optimised using biotechnology. Chicken, beef and pork in most retailers and fast-food restaurants was optimised to grow faster through bio-technology. Conventional meat uses an incredible amount of technology to make it grow more efficiently. There may not be an awareness of that but it is the case.

Consumer awareness is a big challenge but the data points from Singapore show that when they [consumers] taste it [cultivated meat] they are pretty comfortable with it. I don’t need 330 million Americans to accept it. I need a small percentage of that.

Josh Tetrick: Because the volumes are so small, we are not losing consumers because of pricing.

Josh Tetrick: It was a combination of that and my co-founder [Josh Balk] in opening up my eyes to the food system.

Josh Tetrick: In many countries, like China, food security is more important than climate change. Climate change for me resonates more than food security but, for a lot of these countries, that’s not the case.

Josh Tetrick: More than 1,800 people have purchased it [Good Meat’s produce] and top chefs have got behind it. There are multiple facilities now [in the wider industry] and costs have come down. But what’s also true is that this industry is barely in its infancy. There is an enormous amount of work to do.

Josh Tetrick: I think it will be both. Obviously, we have ADM right now. I think some big food companies will acquire cultivated-meat companies but some will see it as too risky. I hope Big Food does get involved. The process will accelerate if they get do.