- An old episode from the Red to Green Podcast on Food Tech & Bio Tech. Listen if you are interested in the future of food, but this isn’t Scaling Nerds.
Red to Green was a podcast that investigated how to transition the food industry from harmful to healthy, from polluting to sustainable, from Red to Green. Each season had a different topic
- Season: Cultivated Meat
- Season: Plastic Alternatives
- Season: Food History
- Season: Food Waste
- Season: Biotech in Food
- Season: Book Reviews on the future of food
We need to scale. But how? The biotech space is will go through some growing pains. Find out about scalability issues like bioreactor capacity, the supply of inputs, and the lack of brains. As well as lessons we can learn from vertical farming companies that are already a step or two further down the line.
Join me for a chat with Elliot Schwartz, he is the Lead Scientist for Cultivated Meat at The Good Food.
If you are not familiar with precision fermentation check out t episode 1 of this season where we explain a bunch of the terms.
LINKS
Check out our supporter of this season ProVeg Incubator and their 12-month incubator program:
https://provegincubator.com
Connect with Marina Schmidt https://www.linkedin.com/in/schmidt-marina/
Check out our supporter of this season, FoodLabs, and their Climate Program:
https://www.foodlabs.com
Hashtags for this episode
Bioreactor capacity
Fermentor
Scaling Biotechnology
Scaling food technology
Cultured Meat
Cultivated Meat
Cell-based meat
Lab-grown meat
Future of cultured meat
Hashtags for this season
Biotechnology in food
Food Tech
Food Technology
Future of Food
Food Innovation
What is biotechnology food
Food biotechnology examples
Food biotechnology startups
Biotechnology food companies
Biotech food in usa
Food biotechnology examples
Editor's note: this episode was lengthened with a ProVeg shout out at minute 8:30
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We need scale, but how the biotech space will go through
some Growing Pains, find out about scalability issues, like
bioreactor capacity, the supply of inputs, and the lack of
brains parades as well as lessons.
We can learn from vertical, farming companies that are
already a step or two further down the line.
(00:20):
Join me for a chat with Elliott Schwartz.
He's the lead scientist for cultivated meet at the good food
Institute. If you are not familiar with
Precision fermentation yet, let check out episode 1 of this
biotech season where we explain a bunch of the terms, otherwise
let's Jump Right In Red to Greenis the most in-depth podcast on
(00:41):
food and agriculture sustainability covering each
topic. No, for 12 episodes.
Let's move the food system from harmful to healthy from
polluting to sustainable from red to Green.
I'm your host Marina Schmidt andyou're listening to season 6
biotech in food. Ew.
(01:02):
And I think Irina Gary was also pointing that out that the
challenge here is just the reversal of its higher quantity
and at the same time, lower price.
So why are bioreactors an issue for scaling this technology, you
know, for things like albumin which are used in high
quantities. You quickly, run into needing
(01:25):
millions of kilograms of proteins, which puts it
basically at a higher level. Of production then the largest
scale industrial enzymes that weproduce today and that's just to
capture less than 1% of the meatmarket with cultured meat
Technologies. And if you bring that out,
further you quickly run out of existing fermentation capacity,
(01:46):
on Earth. If you're producing, just one
input to one technology and you can imagine that all these
companies that are producing hasten or whey, proteins or
heme, Etc. I'm sure that those numbers
break Similarly, where you're going to quickly outstrip the
existing fermentation capacity for this.
So I would consider the challenge is both in cultured
(02:09):
meat and fermentation, Precision, fermentation.
That is that relies on any fermentation, that relies on an
actual fermenter, or steel tank.Essentially the capacity issue,
is the main bottleneck for theseindustries and we're going to
need a whole lot of new Greenfield infrastructure to be.
(02:30):
Published All Around the World in order to have these
Technologies bring the impact that they can.
In terms of decrease environmental footprint for food
production, offsetting the growth of conventional animal
meat production Etc. Another example one that has
been performed by McKinsey in the cultured meat space.
(02:51):
Essentially says that to producejust about a half of percent of
the conventional meat productionvolume.
We would need about 10 to 20 times the amount of bioreactor
capacity than the existing Global pharmaceutical industry.
So the quantities here in terms of the need for capacity is just
(03:12):
enormous. How is this infrastructure going
to be financed? A lot of the companies in this
sector today have been funded byventure capital and the
timelines for returns there and the risk tolerance make sense
for early-stage companies, but alot of infrastructure projects
are really funded By debt, whichis not what venture capital is.
(03:34):
And so the alternative protein industry, this fermentation
companies, these cultured meat companies right now, they're
using that Venture Capital moneyand some other strategic
Partners to fund. These initial pilot facilities
that can go a long ways in termsof proving their technology and
doing small-scale commercial releases.
(03:55):
But to build those next commercial scale facilities, the
infrastructure that's I needed. Those are generally different
forms of funders and that money comes from different sources.
But the challenge I think is, isthat a lot of these alternative
protein companies are very smallthere early they don't
necessarily have the cash flow or the credit history is to work
(04:17):
with debt or private Equity investors.
And so at least some of my colleagues at GFI field at
financing and getting these mechanisms in place for the
industry is one of the biggest opportunities that we Can do in
terms of alleviating, this oncoming bottleneck with
infrastructure. Yeah, it seems to me that we
(04:40):
have been very brainwashed by the model of sass company growth
and it's just not applicable to agri-food one of the areas where
I now see it in action is in vertical farming.
And I'm always very interested to look at adjacent Fields
because there's a lot of overlapand a lot of learning Things and
(05:02):
from talking to people working in vertical farming, it turns
out that they had extremely exponential expectations in
terms of we will scale from having to facilities to having
next year, 82, then 25 and then 250 or something like that.
And four years just going through the roof.
And this enthusiasm for we will just scale is now met by the
(05:28):
reality of. This is not just Just farming
business. This is a real estate business.
The infrastructure needs to be built up.
You need the permits. You need to buy it, security,
standards. And some of these things are not
in one's control. So all of these timelines, for
the opening deadlines of the vertical Farms are being pushed
(05:50):
back and back, and I can see that is an issue that will come
up once investors realize. Oops, we invested in an acid, V
business surprise. Yeah, I think that the way that
you described that it seems likethere's a lot of parallels that
are incoming for these fermentation companies and these
(06:13):
cultured meat companies. Some of the projections, you've
seen consulting, firms make for industry growth and a lot of
them are overly optimistic mostly because of this
infrastructure issue as being one that is a little bit
unexplained in terms of how these sort of curves are going
to just take off. Off.
But at least with fermentation Technologies, I guess the
(06:34):
optimism, there is that this is a mature technology.
We do know how to produce very large quantities of
microorganisms and hundreds of thousand leader reactors.
And so, that's why I think we will see these fermentation
companies be able to scale at least a lot faster than the
cultured meat or the tissue engineering companies, because a
(06:55):
lot of the scalability aspects of that, technology are still
remaining. The solve, there's a lot of
issues and challenges from taking an animal cell culture.
From let's say 5000 liters, which is maybe where the
industry's ACT today roughly 210thousand liters to 50,000 litres
and beyond that. Just for context we don't grow
(07:18):
animal cells anywhere on the planet over 20,000 liters today
and to make the economics reallystart to make sense.
You're going to need to go a lothigher than that, I think.
Think one other example that goes back to what we were
talking about before is also thescalability of the entire supply
chain, that will be needed to feed into these scaled
(07:41):
Industries, but you're going to need new facilities to produce
all of the feedstock ingredientsand process.
All those components that will go into those Technologies.
As just one example, there's a company called Amorous which
does precision fermentation of alot of flavoring compounds and
different ingredients. Sit in the food system.
(08:02):
And earlier this year, they opened their largest facility in
Brazil. This has, I don't know the exact
capacity, but it's over a million litres, I believe of
capacity and they actually opened that right next to a
sugarcane farm. One of the largest sugar, cane
Farms on Earth because you're going to need all of that sugar
to feed these microorganisms to produce that and that's just for
(08:22):
one. So certainly if there's these
Precision fermentation facilities that are popping up,
all over the world, you're also going to run into Supply chain
sourcing challenges as well, looking to get your alternative
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(08:45):
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(09:07):
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(10:13):
I would like to double down a bit on the bioreactor topic
because what you were saying about the current capacity in
total that we have, in terms of bioreactors, it's not even Hot.
Drop on the stone of what's necessary to meet any kind of
Demands. Upcoming in the next decade it
is always very much portrayed asa pessimistic View and just
(10:38):
considering what we were discussing before that so far,
bioreactors were used for different purpose, right?
They were used for low quantity,high-cost ingredients.
Could you also maybe elaborate on how bioreactors will have to
change to meet this new goal? Yeah, I mean it's a you hear
(10:59):
that a lot Making food here we're not making pharmaceutical
products. Now, I think the question is
there's a lot of different bioreactor technologies that
have been developed in the past,but we haven't necessarily
exhausted all of the possibilities so that is an area
that we'll see more research in and could actually be one of the
(11:21):
biggest opportunities for new entrepreneurs to explore, and
that doesn't necessarily mean creating an entire new bio.
A reactor design but it could betweaking the geometry of the
bioreactor a little bit to allowfor better oxygen distribution
or nutrient distribution different.
Impeller designs can affect thatyou can even think about
(11:45):
opportunities around you here like media recycling devices.
That would be part of the overall bioprocess that
companies are designing so that you can have a more efficient or
lower footprint. There's a lot of opportunity
there in terms of making that More efficient and dropping
costs as well. I've also come across the point
(12:05):
that it's relatively easy to start prototyping, things in
one's basement, to have a small-scale test area for with
your bioreactor. But once the next step comes the
next growth stage, this Gap in availability of bioreactors.
Either companies immediately need to scale to a degree.
(12:29):
That's Not viable at the moment or they need to find some kind
of solution of building it on their own and build like a
slightly bigger facility which also is directly connected to a
lot of fixed. Cost up front.
Have you encountered this problem also from talking to
startups and have you found any solutions?
(12:51):
Yes, so I mean we definitely know that lead times for
acquiring bioreactor vessels canbe in the months to even Up to
like a year in some cases a lot of companies are currently.
I think using let's say off the shelf models of bioreactors but
a lot of those have been consumed by the vaccine industry
(13:13):
with covid especially so other companies I think are using more
sort of bespoke engineering. So working with different
engineering and bioreactor Manufacturing firms to sort of
create customized models and solutions for them but I'm not
necessarily sure that anyone hasa very clear path to we have a
Very clear, open roads and smooth sailing when it comes to
(13:33):
acquiring bioreactors. So we have been nerding on
bioreactors, quite a bit. Now what are other areas that
you see could be issues for the growth of the biotech space with
a focus on Precision fermentation, biomass
fermentation? Yeah, I mean, aside from some of
the general things to do with cell productivity increasing
(13:56):
yields or densities of cells, those sorts of things.
The other considerations are work and labor force
development. Do we have the actual Training
Systems in place and EducationalSystems in place to really be
able to upscale the workforce for these companies as they
scale up and that's going to be location.
(14:17):
Independent, I just mentioned regulation, but that's something
that will be a huge factor in terms of timelines, to Market
and decision points made by companies, when it comes to the
product that they're using. And the way that they're
Reducing it, coming in the Precision, fermentation sector.
It's a technology that luckily has been used as a very long
(14:38):
history of safe use in foods, but in some cases, you're
producing proteins that you needto essentially prove is
equivalent to the animal proteinthat we might already be
consuming. Or you might have to justify
that the organism that you're genetically modifying by Design
is not present in the final product or it might have to be
(14:58):
an organism that has already History of use in foods and the
timelines, there could be much longer if you're using a novel
organism, which a lot of these companies are so that will
determine the timelines to Market, which of course will
affect how much revenue companies can bring in on
certain timelines, Etc. And I guess another
consideration here, that is always foundational to these
(15:20):
fields or the environmental impact, and how you make
decisions from a technology standpoint that will influence,
that sort of going back to the whole infrastructure challenge.
Facility location is also very important for influencing
environmental impact. We know that essentially you're
removing the animal from the production system but you're
(15:41):
replacing that animals function with a bioreactor.
In the case of cultivated meat, that requires a lot of energy
and if we want to have this, be a sustainable industry, then
we're going to have these facilities running on
Renewables. So the selection there in terms
of location can go a long way aswell as access to Water sources
that you might need for these facilities distribution for the
(16:04):
actual product, or access or location to certain supply chain
elements. Like, and we talked about this
Amorous production plant being right next to a sugarcane plant,
but sugarcane doesn't grow everywhere on Earth.
So what are you going to do? If you're a Precision
fermentation company moving intoCanada?
So those sorts of larger higher order, questions are things that
(16:26):
we think about a lot and that wetry to alleviate before they
become. Issues.
But certainly the access to these Technologies on a global
scale, is what's going to be important?
We don't want these Technologiesto wind up just feeding or
offsetting some of the meat consumption in wealthy Western
(16:46):
countries. And in order to do that, you
have to have all of these elements come into place.
Yeah, on a personal note, I would definitely recommend to
reach out to people working at vertical farming companies that
are scalable Rapidly. There's so many learnings that
could be applied to a growing industry with a different topic
(17:08):
but the similar challenges at the end of the day.
So Elliot if you would have 50 million where would you put that
money? Yeah it's an interesting
question. At least meet personally I'll
give you like two ways to spend this money at one is more of a
personal technology Crush. I think that for cultured meat
at least I am really intrigued by the idea of growing cells in
(17:30):
think. Capsulated biomaterial.
So whether those are little tiny, spheres, or tubes, or
sheets. And then using those as modular
pieces, to construct, meat products, especially structured
meat products that rely heavily on automation.
Let's say the textile industry. I think those bioprocess design
choices could be a huge opportunity for those that are
(17:52):
trying to solve these scale-up challenges in cultivated needs.
So, some of that research and development has started.
We are funding some projects Ouralong those lines, but I think
more and more that will come into the fold.
So, outside of my own like personal love for certain ways
to solve challenges. I think one of the things that
we need is to form like consortia that have the proper
(18:14):
incentive mechanisms in. Place that allow these
competitor companies to come together at the same table.
Be able to be open and honest about sharing certain data are
basically applied to solve shared challenges.
So, for instance, Let's say maximizing cell proliferation in
the cultured meat sector. Everyone is going to have to
(18:35):
solve that challenge or it get better at it.
And a lot of the times in other Industries, in oil and gas in
semiconductors, you have competitors that come together
and they say, let's solve this together using our Collective
resources. I think that involves having a
real physical pilot plant where you sort of have this test bed
(18:56):
for Technologies to actually be trialed you have.
Modeling going on that uses datafrom real companies from real
production runs at companies Etc.
You have some of that happening in alternative proteins to some
degree with you have its cultured food Innovation Hub in
Switzerland. That opened our that's due to
open at the beginning of next year.
As one example of the pilot testbed, facility for companies to
(19:19):
come and visit but we're going to need.
I think a lot more of those types of things and that sounds
like about 50 million dollars, that you need for that.
Wow. Yeah.
I've been talking to a couple Love rather frustrated
researchers from various companies in this space to say
at the level of research that weare this is very basic ground
(19:40):
research. You cannot have clear timelines
and deadlines and we are doing this in this research to get
this in this outcome. It's at such a fundamental
level. That one of them was saying I
cannot do my research this way at the end of the day.
If the companies are trying to individually do all the ground
research, It doesn't matter how much funding they have, it will
(20:03):
never be enough, but I guess oneof the drivers of keeping them
from doing so is the investors or it seems to me like that
because the investors say but wehave these patterns or we have
these Trade Secrets and we want to keep that benefit for our
companies. Is that also would you've been
witnessing? Or is there some other main
(20:25):
reason? Yeah, I mean, this is something
that's come up. I think since from the get-go
can We have patent pools that promote sharing of Technologies
because it was pretty obvious that you're going to have this
repetitive research going on. And so on development, in cell
culture, media development, and all these different companies
all over the world. And a lot of that is IP driven
(20:46):
and a lot of that is influenced by this lack of RD foundation as
you mentioned, which I think is,that's the biggest hole at the
amount of public research dollars.
That went into cellular agriculture before the year
2020. Let's It was less than 10
million dollars or so maybe 15, 20 million dollars.
And that's why a big part of ourorganization is trying to unlock
(21:11):
more public dollar spending on, cultivated meet cellular
Agriculture and other alternative protein
Technologies. Because trust me, there are a
lot of researchers that want to get into this field, but not a
lot of funding opportunities that tide is beginning to shift
in the Netherlands. They were invested 55 million
dollars into this cellular agriculture ecosystem project,
(21:34):
there's 10 million dollars spenton cultivated meat and cellular
agriculture. In the United States, these
larger grants opportunities are beginning to be funded by
governments around the world. But we talked about trying to
generate the level of governmentinvolvement.
As there was with like the SpaceRace, you want these governments
to really be fighting over the opportunity to win on these
(21:56):
Technologies because it has so many implications for reaching I
make goals but also food security and and I think that's
beginning to happen a little bit.
What is something that you've been hearing and the space that
you disagree with or controversial opinion that you
have? I see this a lot because we are
involved with academic researchers that get together
(22:18):
and are applying for some of these larger grant
opportunities. So we see what goes into those
proposals. What are the talking points and
the things that governments are asking for?
I think we put too much energy into work.
Worrying about jobs for farmers and those that are in the
involved in the conventional meat production system, like
what happens to those people if you have alternative protein
(22:40):
Technologies, make up a considerable part of the labor
market is not Zero. Sum there are always expanding
and Contracting opportunities inthe labor market going on.
And so just because one industryis decreasing, doesn't mean that
the job opportunities have flatlined, all the jobs in the
alternative protein sector that Today, most of them weren't
(23:02):
around 5 years ago and they don't necessarily need to be
filled by rescaled farmers and we don't necessarily have to
figure out how to train Farmers to operate.
Bioreactors on their farms in order to have this technology
work and to really force them into participating in to this
new system, you could go througha whole host of examples with
(23:24):
cars and the horse and buggy andall everything that technology
develops. There's opportunities.
There are jobs that are replacedand their new opportunities that
arise. Well, actually Elliot and I
started out this interview by talking about how Precision
fermentation and cell-based meatare connected.
(23:47):
But because that is quite specific I put it.
At the end of this episode, we're talking about cultivated
meet meaning meet made through tissue engineering by growing
cells. Instead of growing an entire cow
and how Precision fermentation can be used or will be used to
produce the Puts for this process.
(24:10):
It's just interesting for me to see how these fields that we
tend to talk about sometimes separately.
All at the end of the day interrelate, and if you're
interested in that overall, there is a really good overview
where you see plant-based fermentation and cell-based and
how they interrelate. So, how fermentation is used for
(24:31):
cell based products, and plant-based, and fermentation,
and fermentation, and plant-based, and all of these.
It overlaps and different directions words going.
If you Google fermentation report G of I, you will find it.
So, I hope you will enjoy this bonus part.
(24:51):
I remember in one of the interviews, you were saying that
the efficiency of cellular agriculture is that it takes out
the middle cow or the middle animal.
Then I'd use this, just agricultural inputs, to then
create the actual end product, and I've also come across people
criticizing that well, but at the end of the day, it's still
(25:14):
dependent on conventional agriculture.
To get the inputs. Now for me, that's one of those
classic debates that you have. All the Industries or the
somebody promoting Improvement. And another person arguing for
Perfection and criticizing with well, but this is not perfect
and it should be completely decoupled from conventional
(25:35):
agriculture which may be gas. Fermentation can be but most of
these other techniques and Technologies.
Cannot how do you see this argument?
You're absolutely right and for all of these Technologies you
need inputs. You need raw materials to feed
the In isms that you're using for, let's say, fermentation
Technologies, or you need the raw materials to be broken down
(25:57):
into the cell culture. Media that is being used for
cultivated needs and this is actually where some of these
Technologies intersects because right now it for the cell
culture, media production. So the feedstock that those
animal cells are consuming a lotof those inputs actually come
from fermentation processes. So the vitamins that are used
(26:21):
Amino acids that are used the growth factors and of a common
in proteins that are used those all come from Precision
fermentation, which then lookingat a secondary level, those
microorganisms are also consuming feedstock.
So sugar and amino acids, Etc, nitrogen sources, and those all
come from different sources of raw materials.
(26:42):
What the industry is trying to figure out especially on the
cultivated meat side of things is what are the best sources of
As input materials and who's going to be creating them?
So how is that future supply chain going to be generated
because if you actually look at the cost and the environmental
footprint of cultivated meet today, a lot of that is driven
(27:06):
by the cell culture, media, which in turn is driven by the
fact that a lot of those ingredients can be produced by
Precision fermentation which is a little bit more energy
intensive than, let's say, taking a soybean and processing
it down to its constituent, amino acid components.
There's a Of, I think work to bedone to figure out the answers
to those questions. And we're in that puzzle or that
(27:28):
sort of value chain the conventional Farmers
participate. And to what extent, it's
interesting because it seems like for a lot of investors
Precision fermentation. Seems to be a safer bet than
cellular agriculture or tissue engineering and actually for
people who have not listened to our see, Season one or season 3,
(27:53):
and who maybe aren't familiar with the term.
Could you describe in what way? Specifically products of
precision fermentation would be involved in the
biopharmaceutical industry? Where a lot of this technology
is derived from, they use reallypure high quality inputs and a
lot of the ways to generate those today are from Precision
(28:15):
fermentation Technologies has itin its name, right?
It's very precise at creating like single ingredient.
And so that can be used in foodsor in this case, in feedstocks
for producing different foods. And So, currently a lot of amino
acids, individual amino acids, that is vitamins and growth
factors or recombinant proteins that we add to the cell culture
(28:36):
media to feed those cells. Those are produced through
fermentation Technologies today,but the industry in general, the
tissue engineering or cultured meat industry, wants to move
away from that because it is more costly to do.
It that way and it's more environmentally expensive.
And so a lot of the research now, is figuring out, how can we
(28:58):
produce these inputs in a sort of food grade way.
So, using this sort of less Pure, or more crude ingredient
that can save on costs. Yeah, but you find it
interesting that the cultivated meet startups want to rely on
plant-based sources because theywill be more cheap and at the
same time a lot of precision. Fermentation companies are I
(29:21):
think we will actually reach price parity with our product or
some of them. Even say it will be even cheaper
than the original ingredient. So, how does that fit?
Yeah, I mean to some degree, I think there will be variation
and how efficiently companies can move down that cost curve
depending on what protein that they are producing and I guess
(29:45):
what organism they're using to do that, like, the companies
that I talked to, a lot of them say, it doesn't Necessarily
matter what protein we're producing it, we can produce
them all for this low-cost. Now, I think that is easier said
than done and a lot of this is dependent on the economies of
scale on its final use case. So for precision fermentation
(30:07):
because some of these proteins that they're producing are
highly functional ingredients infinal food products.
They can be used at less than 1%of the final product like
impossible team protein. For instance, If that heme costs
a lot to produce, you're using, so little of it that you can
make sense from a cost perspective in a final product.
(30:33):
So first of all, what is he? If you think about what makes
meat tastes like meat? It is this irony flavor that you
get. Especially if you think about
blood, of course plant-based products.
Don't usually have himin them except impossible.
Koontz, the u.s. plan based company has first started.
(30:55):
Extracting him from the nodules,from the roots of soy.
But to get this protein soy, ligament globin, which creates
the feeling that the plant-basedBurgers bleeding, like a real
Burger is quite tricky. So they started using Precision
fermentation by genetically, engineering a yeast strain
(31:17):
called peachier. Pastoris, interestingly, there's
another company called Motif Food Works, which has created an
ingredient that they call him. Mommy, it is identical.
To the bovine myoglobin. So the him that you will find in
the muscles of cows, Motif foodworks uses.
(31:39):
The same yeast, strain engineered in a different way
and now these two companies are in quite a legal battle
regarding patents and their intellectual property in Europe
and possible Foods is not very well known because you actually
cannot get their products here. The soy protein, that is used
(31:59):
Stan impossible Foods, Burgers is to arrive from GMO soy now
for an input into another food process in the case of using
recombinant protein or growth factor for cultured needs.
Sometimes that is a little bit more difficult to justify.
Actually, one of the analyses that I've been working on
(32:22):
internally at GFI, that will be out in the fall of this year.
Is essentially asking the question what quantity of growth
There's does the industry need to reach a certain scale.
So let's say, if cultured meat was 1% of the total Meat Market,
how much of individual proteins would need to be produced and
what you get when you run. Those numbers is that for growth
(32:46):
factors because we use so littleof it in the cell culture media,
you can actually justify a fairly High Cost of production
for individual growth factors. So let's say if the Precision
fermentation industry, Street istrying to reach ten dollars per
kilogram for individual proteins, that feed into final
food products. Then you could produce and
(33:08):
justify think growth factor costs around 10,000 to 100,000
dollars per kilogram to feed into the culture of meat
industry. Now that's not true for all
proteins. So certain proteins like insulin
or transferrin and albumin proteins, that play really
important roles in signaling to cells or delivering different
(33:28):
nutrients to cells. In the media, we use them at
much, higher quantities, and to justify their use as recombinant
proteins produced from Precisionfermentation.
We're talking about costs in some cases that would have to be
as low as 10 dollars per kilogram.
And this is why I think the industry and we are exploring
(33:49):
other ways of sourcing, those proteins from plants.
So a lot of plants have different ortholog proteins or
similar proteins, that have a similar function as their animal
counterparts. It's and so there's research
that we are funding. That will look into that
question. So that it's essentially trying
to figure out what are the best.Use cases for precision
fermentation and what are the best use cases for sourcing?
(34:12):
All of these different ingredients, think of one fellow
nerd, who would appreciate this episode?
It could be a colleague of yours, a friend, or random
person on LinkedIn. Think of one person that would
like to learn about bioreactors,and scalability challenge.
This off the biotech space. Well, if you want to support red
(34:33):
to Green, then just forward them.
This episode. It takes 15 to 30 seconds and it
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Thanks to Celeste Gupta, our senior audio editor, you kill
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Robert Griffin for tinkering with the freaking website, all
the time and Cherry Sussex for supporting with industry
(34:57):
research. Until next time, let's Move the
food industry from harmful to healthy from polluting to
sustainable from red to Green.
We need scale, but how the biotech space will go through
some Growing Pains, find out about scalability issues, like
bioreactor capacity, the supply of inputs, and the lack of
brains parades as well as lessons.
We can learn from vertical, farming companies that are
already a step or two further down the line.
(00:20):
Join me for a chat with Elliott Schwartz.
He's the lead scientist for cultivated meet at the good food
Institute. If you are not familiar with
Precision fermentation yet, let check out episode 1 of this
biotech season where we explain a bunch of the terms, otherwise
let's Jump Right In Red to Greenis the most in-depth podcast on
(00:41):
food and agriculture sustainability covering each
topic. No, for 12 episodes.
Let's move the food system from harmful to healthy from
polluting to sustainable from red to Green.
I'm your host Marina Schmidt andyou're listening to season 6
biotech in food. Ew.
(01:02):
And I think Irina Gary was also pointing that out that the
challenge here is just the reversal of its higher quantity
and at the same time, lower price.
So why are bioreactors an issue for scaling this technology, you
know, for things like albumin which are used in high
quantities. You quickly, run into needing
(01:25):
millions of kilograms of proteins, which puts it
basically at a higher level. Of production then the largest
scale industrial enzymes that weproduce today and that's just to
capture less than 1% of the meatmarket with cultured meat
Technologies. And if you bring that out,
further you quickly run out of existing fermentation capacity,
(01:46):
on Earth. If you're producing, just one
input to one technology and you can imagine that all these
companies that are producing hasten or whey, proteins or
heme, Etc. I'm sure that those numbers
break Similarly, where you're going to quickly outstrip the
existing fermentation capacity for this.
So I would consider the challenge is both in cultured
(02:09):
meat and fermentation, Precision, fermentation.
That is that relies on any fermentation, that relies on an
actual fermenter, or steel tank.Essentially the capacity issue,
is the main bottleneck for theseindustries and we're going to
need a whole lot of new Greenfield infrastructure to be.
(02:30):
Published All Around the World in order to have these
Technologies bring the impact that they can.
In terms of decrease environmental footprint for food
production, offsetting the growth of conventional animal
meat production Etc. Another example one that has
been performed by McKinsey in the cultured meat space.
(02:51):
Essentially says that to producejust about a half of percent of
the conventional meat productionvolume.
We would need about 10 to 20 times the amount of bioreactor
capacity than the existing Global pharmaceutical industry.
So the quantities here in terms of the need for capacity is just
(03:12):
enormous. How is this infrastructure going
to be financed? A lot of the companies in this
sector today have been funded byventure capital and the
timelines for returns there and the risk tolerance make sense
for early-stage companies, but alot of infrastructure projects
are really funded By debt, whichis not what venture capital is.
(03:34):
And so the alternative protein industry, this fermentation
companies, these cultured meat companies right now, they're
using that Venture Capital moneyand some other strategic
Partners to fund. These initial pilot facilities
that can go a long ways in termsof proving their technology and
doing small-scale commercial releases.
(03:55):
But to build those next commercial scale facilities, the
infrastructure that's I needed. Those are generally different
forms of funders and that money comes from different sources.
But the challenge I think is, isthat a lot of these alternative
protein companies are very smallthere early they don't
necessarily have the cash flow or the credit history is to work
(04:17):
with debt or private Equity investors.
And so at least some of my colleagues at GFI field at
financing and getting these mechanisms in place for the
industry is one of the biggest opportunities that we Can do in
terms of alleviating, this oncoming bottleneck with
infrastructure. Yeah, it seems to me that we
(04:40):
have been very brainwashed by the model of sass company growth
and it's just not applicable to agri-food one of the areas where
I now see it in action is in vertical farming.
And I'm always very interested to look at adjacent Fields
because there's a lot of overlapand a lot of learning Things and
(05:02):
from talking to people working in vertical farming, it turns
out that they had extremely exponential expectations in
terms of we will scale from having to facilities to having
next year, 82, then 25 and then 250 or something like that.
And four years just going through the roof.
And this enthusiasm for we will just scale is now met by the
(05:28):
reality of. This is not just Just farming
business. This is a real estate business.
The infrastructure needs to be built up.
You need the permits. You need to buy it, security,
standards. And some of these things are not
in one's control. So all of these timelines, for
the opening deadlines of the vertical Farms are being pushed
(05:50):
back and back, and I can see that is an issue that will come
up once investors realize. Oops, we invested in an acid, V
business surprise. Yeah, I think that the way that
you described that it seems likethere's a lot of parallels that
are incoming for these fermentation companies and these
(06:13):
cultured meat companies. Some of the projections, you've
seen consulting, firms make for industry growth and a lot of
them are overly optimistic mostly because of this
infrastructure issue as being one that is a little bit
unexplained in terms of how these sort of curves are going
to just take off. Off.
But at least with fermentation Technologies, I guess the
(06:34):
optimism, there is that this is a mature technology.
We do know how to produce very large quantities of
microorganisms and hundreds of thousand leader reactors.
And so, that's why I think we will see these fermentation
companies be able to scale at least a lot faster than the
cultured meat or the tissue engineering companies, because a
(06:55):
lot of the scalability aspects of that, technology are still
remaining. The solve, there's a lot of
issues and challenges from taking an animal cell culture.
From let's say 5000 liters, which is maybe where the
industry's ACT today roughly 210thousand liters to 50,000 litres
and beyond that. Just for context we don't grow
(07:18):
animal cells anywhere on the planet over 20,000 liters today
and to make the economics reallystart to make sense.
You're going to need to go a lothigher than that, I think.
Think one other example that goes back to what we were
talking about before is also thescalability of the entire supply
chain, that will be needed to feed into these scaled
(07:41):
Industries, but you're going to need new facilities to produce
all of the feedstock ingredientsand process.
All those components that will go into those Technologies.
As just one example, there's a company called Amorous which
does precision fermentation of alot of flavoring compounds and
different ingredients. Sit in the food system.
(08:02):
And earlier this year, they opened their largest facility in
Brazil. This has, I don't know the exact
capacity, but it's over a million litres, I believe of
capacity and they actually opened that right next to a
sugarcane farm. One of the largest sugar, cane
Farms on Earth because you're going to need all of that sugar
to feed these microorganisms to produce that and that's just for
(08:22):
one. So certainly if there's these
Precision fermentation facilities that are popping up,
all over the world, you're also going to run into Supply chain
sourcing challenges as well, looking to get your alternative
protein, start up to the next level, the provision Cube later.
Founded in 2002 18 was the world's first incubator focused
(08:45):
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(09:07):
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(09:29):
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(09:50):
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(10:13):
I would like to double down a bit on the bioreactor topic
because what you were saying about the current capacity in
total that we have, in terms of bioreactors, it's not even Hot.
Drop on the stone of what's necessary to meet any kind of
Demands. Upcoming in the next decade it
is always very much portrayed asa pessimistic View and just
(10:38):
considering what we were discussing before that so far,
bioreactors were used for different purpose, right?
They were used for low quantity,high-cost ingredients.
Could you also maybe elaborate on how bioreactors will have to
change to meet this new goal? Yeah, I mean it's a you hear
(10:59):
that a lot Making food here we're not making pharmaceutical
products. Now, I think the question is
there's a lot of different bioreactor technologies that
have been developed in the past,but we haven't necessarily
exhausted all of the possibilities so that is an area
that we'll see more research in and could actually be one of the
(11:21):
biggest opportunities for new entrepreneurs to explore, and
that doesn't necessarily mean creating an entire new bio.
A reactor design but it could betweaking the geometry of the
bioreactor a little bit to allowfor better oxygen distribution
or nutrient distribution different.
Impeller designs can affect thatyou can even think about
(11:45):
opportunities around you here like media recycling devices.
That would be part of the overall bioprocess that
companies are designing so that you can have a more efficient or
lower footprint. There's a lot of opportunity
there in terms of making that More efficient and dropping
costs as well. I've also come across the point
(12:05):
that it's relatively easy to start prototyping, things in
one's basement, to have a small-scale test area for with
your bioreactor. But once the next step comes the
next growth stage, this Gap in availability of bioreactors.
Either companies immediately need to scale to a degree.
(12:29):
That's Not viable at the moment or they need to find some kind
of solution of building it on their own and build like a
slightly bigger facility which also is directly connected to a
lot of fixed. Cost up front.
Have you encountered this problem also from talking to
startups and have you found any solutions?
(12:51):
Yes, so I mean we definitely know that lead times for
acquiring bioreactor vessels canbe in the months to even Up to
like a year in some cases a lot of companies are currently.
I think using let's say off the shelf models of bioreactors but
a lot of those have been consumed by the vaccine industry
(13:13):
with covid especially so other companies I think are using more
sort of bespoke engineering. So working with different
engineering and bioreactor Manufacturing firms to sort of
create customized models and solutions for them but I'm not
necessarily sure that anyone hasa very clear path to we have a
Very clear, open roads and smooth sailing when it comes to
(13:33):
acquiring bioreactors. So we have been nerding on
bioreactors, quite a bit. Now what are other areas that
you see could be issues for the growth of the biotech space with
a focus on Precision fermentation, biomass
fermentation? Yeah, I mean, aside from some of
the general things to do with cell productivity increasing
(13:56):
yields or densities of cells, those sorts of things.
The other considerations are work and labor force
development. Do we have the actual Training
Systems in place and EducationalSystems in place to really be
able to upscale the workforce for these companies as they
scale up and that's going to be location.
(14:17):
Independent, I just mentioned regulation, but that's something
that will be a huge factor in terms of timelines, to Market
and decision points made by companies, when it comes to the
product that they're using. And the way that they're
Reducing it, coming in the Precision, fermentation sector.
It's a technology that luckily has been used as a very long
(14:38):
history of safe use in foods, but in some cases, you're
producing proteins that you needto essentially prove is
equivalent to the animal proteinthat we might already be
consuming. Or you might have to justify
that the organism that you're genetically modifying by Design
is not present in the final product or it might have to be
(14:58):
an organism that has already History of use in foods and the
timelines, there could be much longer if you're using a novel
organism, which a lot of these companies are so that will
determine the timelines to Market, which of course will
affect how much revenue companies can bring in on
certain timelines, Etc. And I guess another
consideration here, that is always foundational to these
(15:20):
fields or the environmental impact, and how you make
decisions from a technology standpoint that will influence,
that sort of going back to the whole infrastructure challenge.
Facility location is also very important for influencing
environmental impact. We know that essentially you're
removing the animal from the production system but you're
(15:41):
replacing that animals function with a bioreactor.
In the case of cultivated meat, that requires a lot of energy
and if we want to have this, be a sustainable industry, then
we're going to have these facilities running on
Renewables. So the selection there in terms
of location can go a long way aswell as access to Water sources
that you might need for these facilities distribution for the
(16:04):
actual product, or access or location to certain supply chain
elements. Like, and we talked about this
Amorous production plant being right next to a sugarcane plant,
but sugarcane doesn't grow everywhere on Earth.
So what are you going to do? If you're a Precision
fermentation company moving intoCanada?
So those sorts of larger higher order, questions are things that
(16:26):
we think about a lot and that wetry to alleviate before they
become. Issues.
But certainly the access to these Technologies on a global
scale, is what's going to be important?
We don't want these Technologiesto wind up just feeding or
offsetting some of the meat consumption in wealthy Western
(16:46):
countries. And in order to do that, you
have to have all of these elements come into place.
Yeah, on a personal note, I would definitely recommend to
reach out to people working at vertical farming companies that
are scalable Rapidly. There's so many learnings that
could be applied to a growing industry with a different topic
(17:08):
but the similar challenges at the end of the day.
So Elliot if you would have 50 million where would you put that
money? Yeah it's an interesting
question. At least meet personally I'll
give you like two ways to spend this money at one is more of a
personal technology Crush. I think that for cultured meat
at least I am really intrigued by the idea of growing cells in
(17:30):
think. Capsulated biomaterial.
So whether those are little tiny, spheres, or tubes, or
sheets. And then using those as modular
pieces, to construct, meat products, especially structured
meat products that rely heavily on automation.
Let's say the textile industry. I think those bioprocess design
choices could be a huge opportunity for those that are
(17:52):
trying to solve these scale-up challenges in cultivated needs.
So, some of that research and development has started.
We are funding some projects Ouralong those lines, but I think
more and more that will come into the fold.
So, outside of my own like personal love for certain ways
to solve challenges. I think one of the things that
we need is to form like consortia that have the proper
(18:14):
incentive mechanisms in. Place that allow these
competitor companies to come together at the same table.
Be able to be open and honest about sharing certain data are
basically applied to solve shared challenges.
So, for instance, Let's say maximizing cell proliferation in
the cultured meat sector. Everyone is going to have to
(18:35):
solve that challenge or it get better at it.
And a lot of the times in other Industries, in oil and gas in
semiconductors, you have competitors that come together
and they say, let's solve this together using our Collective
resources. I think that involves having a
real physical pilot plant where you sort of have this test bed
(18:56):
for Technologies to actually be trialed you have.
Modeling going on that uses datafrom real companies from real
production runs at companies Etc.
You have some of that happening in alternative proteins to some
degree with you have its cultured food Innovation Hub in
Switzerland. That opened our that's due to
open at the beginning of next year.
As one example of the pilot testbed, facility for companies to
(19:19):
come and visit but we're going to need.
I think a lot more of those types of things and that sounds
like about 50 million dollars, that you need for that.
Wow. Yeah.
I've been talking to a couple Love rather frustrated
researchers from various companies in this space to say
at the level of research that weare this is very basic ground
(19:40):
research. You cannot have clear timelines
and deadlines and we are doing this in this research to get
this in this outcome. It's at such a fundamental
level. That one of them was saying I
cannot do my research this way at the end of the day.
If the companies are trying to individually do all the ground
research, It doesn't matter how much funding they have, it will
(20:03):
never be enough, but I guess oneof the drivers of keeping them
from doing so is the investors or it seems to me like that
because the investors say but wehave these patterns or we have
these Trade Secrets and we want to keep that benefit for our
companies. Is that also would you've been
witnessing? Or is there some other main
(20:25):
reason? Yeah, I mean, this is something
that's come up. I think since from the get-go
can We have patent pools that promote sharing of Technologies
because it was pretty obvious that you're going to have this
repetitive research going on. And so on development, in cell
culture, media development, and all these different companies
all over the world. And a lot of that is IP driven
(20:46):
and a lot of that is influenced by this lack of RD foundation as
you mentioned, which I think is,that's the biggest hole at the
amount of public research dollars.
That went into cellular agriculture before the year
2020. Let's It was less than 10
million dollars or so maybe 15, 20 million dollars.
And that's why a big part of ourorganization is trying to unlock
(21:11):
more public dollar spending on, cultivated meet cellular
Agriculture and other alternative protein
Technologies. Because trust me, there are a
lot of researchers that want to get into this field, but not a
lot of funding opportunities that tide is beginning to shift
in the Netherlands. They were invested 55 million
dollars into this cellular agriculture ecosystem project,
(21:34):
there's 10 million dollars spenton cultivated meat and cellular
agriculture. In the United States, these
larger grants opportunities are beginning to be funded by
governments around the world. But we talked about trying to
generate the level of governmentinvolvement.
As there was with like the SpaceRace, you want these governments
to really be fighting over the opportunity to win on these
(21:56):
Technologies because it has so many implications for reaching I
make goals but also food security and and I think that's
beginning to happen a little bit.
What is something that you've been hearing and the space that
you disagree with or controversial opinion that you
have? I see this a lot because we are
involved with academic researchers that get together
(22:18):
and are applying for some of these larger grant
opportunities. So we see what goes into those
proposals. What are the talking points and
the things that governments are asking for?
I think we put too much energy into work.
Worrying about jobs for farmers and those that are in the
involved in the conventional meat production system, like
what happens to those people if you have alternative protein
(22:40):
Technologies, make up a considerable part of the labor
market is not Zero. Sum there are always expanding
and Contracting opportunities inthe labor market going on.
And so just because one industryis decreasing, doesn't mean that
the job opportunities have flatlined, all the jobs in the
alternative protein sector that Today, most of them weren't
(23:02):
around 5 years ago and they don't necessarily need to be
filled by rescaled farmers and we don't necessarily have to
figure out how to train Farmers to operate.
Bioreactors on their farms in order to have this technology
work and to really force them into participating in to this
new system, you could go througha whole host of examples with
(23:24):
cars and the horse and buggy andall everything that technology
develops. There's opportunities.
There are jobs that are replacedand their new opportunities that
arise. Well, actually Elliot and I
started out this interview by talking about how Precision
fermentation and cell-based meatare connected.
(23:47):
But because that is quite specific I put it.
At the end of this episode, we're talking about cultivated
meet meaning meet made through tissue engineering by growing
cells. Instead of growing an entire cow
and how Precision fermentation can be used or will be used to
produce the Puts for this process.
(24:10):
It's just interesting for me to see how these fields that we
tend to talk about sometimes separately.
All at the end of the day interrelate, and if you're
interested in that overall, there is a really good overview
where you see plant-based fermentation and cell-based and
how they interrelate. So, how fermentation is used for
(24:31):
cell based products, and plant-based, and fermentation,
and fermentation, and plant-based, and all of these.
It overlaps and different directions words going.
If you Google fermentation report G of I, you will find it.
So, I hope you will enjoy this bonus part.
(24:51):
I remember in one of the interviews, you were saying that
the efficiency of cellular agriculture is that it takes out
the middle cow or the middle animal.
Then I'd use this, just agricultural inputs, to then
create the actual end product, and I've also come across people
criticizing that well, but at the end of the day, it's still
(25:14):
dependent on conventional agriculture.
To get the inputs. Now for me, that's one of those
classic debates that you have. All the Industries or the
somebody promoting Improvement. And another person arguing for
Perfection and criticizing with well, but this is not perfect
and it should be completely decoupled from conventional
(25:35):
agriculture which may be gas. Fermentation can be but most of
these other techniques and Technologies.
Cannot how do you see this argument?
You're absolutely right and for all of these Technologies you
need inputs. You need raw materials to feed
the In isms that you're using for, let's say, fermentation
Technologies, or you need the raw materials to be broken down
(25:57):
into the cell culture. Media that is being used for
cultivated needs and this is actually where some of these
Technologies intersects because right now it for the cell
culture, media production. So the feedstock that those
animal cells are consuming a lotof those inputs actually come
from fermentation processes. So the vitamins that are used
(26:21):
Amino acids that are used the growth factors and of a common
in proteins that are used those all come from Precision
fermentation, which then lookingat a secondary level, those
microorganisms are also consuming feedstock.
So sugar and amino acids, Etc, nitrogen sources, and those all
come from different sources of raw materials.
(26:42):
What the industry is trying to figure out especially on the
cultivated meat side of things is what are the best sources of
As input materials and who's going to be creating them?
So how is that future supply chain going to be generated
because if you actually look at the cost and the environmental
footprint of cultivated meet today, a lot of that is driven
(27:06):
by the cell culture, media, which in turn is driven by the
fact that a lot of those ingredients can be produced by
Precision fermentation which is a little bit more energy
intensive than, let's say, taking a soybean and processing
it down to its constituent, amino acid components.
There's a Of, I think work to bedone to figure out the answers
to those questions. And we're in that puzzle or that
(27:28):
sort of value chain the conventional Farmers
participate. And to what extent, it's
interesting because it seems like for a lot of investors
Precision fermentation. Seems to be a safer bet than
cellular agriculture or tissue engineering and actually for
people who have not listened to our see, Season one or season 3,
(27:53):
and who maybe aren't familiar with the term.
Could you describe in what way? Specifically products of
precision fermentation would be involved in the
biopharmaceutical industry? Where a lot of this technology
is derived from, they use reallypure high quality inputs and a
lot of the ways to generate those today are from Precision
(28:15):
fermentation Technologies has itin its name, right?
It's very precise at creating like single ingredient.
And so that can be used in foodsor in this case, in feedstocks
for producing different foods. And So, currently a lot of amino
acids, individual amino acids, that is vitamins and growth
factors or recombinant proteins that we add to the cell culture
(28:36):
media to feed those cells. Those are produced through
fermentation Technologies today,but the industry in general, the
tissue engineering or cultured meat industry, wants to move
away from that because it is more costly to do.
It that way and it's more environmentally expensive.
And so a lot of the research now, is figuring out, how can we
(28:58):
produce these inputs in a sort of food grade way.
So, using this sort of less Pure, or more crude ingredient
that can save on costs. Yeah, but you find it
interesting that the cultivated meet startups want to rely on
plant-based sources because theywill be more cheap and at the
same time a lot of precision. Fermentation companies are I
(29:21):
think we will actually reach price parity with our product or
some of them. Even say it will be even cheaper
than the original ingredient. So, how does that fit?
Yeah, I mean to some degree, I think there will be variation
and how efficiently companies can move down that cost curve
depending on what protein that they are producing and I guess
(29:45):
what organism they're using to do that, like, the companies
that I talked to, a lot of them say, it doesn't Necessarily
matter what protein we're producing it, we can produce
them all for this low-cost. Now, I think that is easier said
than done and a lot of this is dependent on the economies of
scale on its final use case. So for precision fermentation
(30:07):
because some of these proteins that they're producing are
highly functional ingredients infinal food products.
They can be used at less than 1%of the final product like
impossible team protein. For instance, If that heme costs
a lot to produce, you're using, so little of it that you can
make sense from a cost perspective in a final product.
(30:33):
So first of all, what is he? If you think about what makes
meat tastes like meat? It is this irony flavor that you
get. Especially if you think about
blood, of course plant-based products.
Don't usually have himin them except impossible.
Koontz, the u.s. plan based company has first started.
(30:55):
Extracting him from the nodules,from the roots of soy.
But to get this protein soy, ligament globin, which creates
the feeling that the plant-basedBurgers bleeding, like a real
Burger is quite tricky. So they started using Precision
fermentation by genetically, engineering a yeast strain
(31:17):
called peachier. Pastoris, interestingly, there's
another company called Motif Food Works, which has created an
ingredient that they call him. Mommy, it is identical.
To the bovine myoglobin. So the him that you will find in
the muscles of cows, Motif foodworks uses.
(31:39):
The same yeast, strain engineered in a different way
and now these two companies are in quite a legal battle
regarding patents and their intellectual property in Europe
and possible Foods is not very well known because you actually
cannot get their products here. The soy protein, that is used
(31:59):
Stan impossible Foods, Burgers is to arrive from GMO soy now
for an input into another food process in the case of using
recombinant protein or growth factor for cultured needs.
Sometimes that is a little bit more difficult to justify.
Actually, one of the analyses that I've been working on
(32:22):
internally at GFI, that will be out in the fall of this year.
Is essentially asking the question what quantity of growth
There's does the industry need to reach a certain scale.
So let's say, if cultured meat was 1% of the total Meat Market,
how much of individual proteins would need to be produced and
what you get when you run. Those numbers is that for growth
(32:46):
factors because we use so littleof it in the cell culture media,
you can actually justify a fairly High Cost of production
for individual growth factors. So let's say if the Precision
fermentation industry, Street istrying to reach ten dollars per
kilogram for individual proteins, that feed into final
food products. Then you could produce and
(33:08):
justify think growth factor costs around 10,000 to 100,000
dollars per kilogram to feed into the culture of meat
industry. Now that's not true for all
proteins. So certain proteins like insulin
or transferrin and albumin proteins, that play really
important roles in signaling to cells or delivering different
(33:28):
nutrients to cells. In the media, we use them at
much, higher quantities, and to justify their use as recombinant
proteins produced from Precisionfermentation.
We're talking about costs in some cases that would have to be
as low as 10 dollars per kilogram.
And this is why I think the industry and we are exploring
(33:49):
other ways of sourcing, those proteins from plants.
So a lot of plants have different ortholog proteins or
similar proteins, that have a similar function as their animal
counterparts. It's and so there's research
that we are funding. That will look into that
question. So that it's essentially trying
to figure out what are the best.Use cases for precision
fermentation and what are the best use cases for sourcing?
(34:12):
All of these different ingredients, think of one fellow
nerd, who would appreciate this episode?
It could be a colleague of yours, a friend, or random
person on LinkedIn. Think of one person that would
like to learn about bioreactors,and scalability challenge.
This off the biotech space. Well, if you want to support red
(34:33):
to Green, then just forward them.
This episode. It takes 15 to 30 seconds and it
helps a great deal to keep red to green going.
Thanks to Celeste Gupta, our senior audio editor, you kill
men. And for doing a second review,
Robert Griffin for tinkering with the freaking website, all
the time and Cherry Sussex for supporting with industry
(34:57):
research. Until next time, let's Move the
food industry from harmful to healthy from polluting to
sustainable from red to Green.
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