Future Meat Technologies, or Future Meat for short, is a biotechnology firm which produces cultured meat from

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adult m ...

cells and is working on cultured lamb

kebab Kebab (, ; ar, كباب, link=no, Latn, ar, kabāb, ; tr, kebap, link=no, ) or kabob (North American) is a type of cooked meat dish that originates from cuisines of the Middle East. Many variants of the category are popular around the wor ...

s and

beef Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle (''Bos taurus''). In prehistoric times, humankind hunted aurochs and later domesticated them. Since that time, numerous breeds of cattle have been bred specifically for the quality or quantity ...

burgers. Based in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, its main office is located in

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

, while its primary production facility is operating in

Rehovot Rehovot ( he, רְחוֹבוֹת ''Rəḥōvōt'', ar, رحوڤوت ''Reḥūfūt'') is a city in the Central District of Israel, about south of Tel Aviv. In it had a population of . Etymology Israel Belkind, founder of the Bilu movement, ...

. Future Meat Technologies mainly seeks to supply hardware and cell lines to manufacturers of cultured meat rather than directly selling food products to consumers. In November 2022, Future Meat Technologies rebranded t
Believer Meats

History

Future Meat Technologies was founded in 2018 by

Yaakov Nahmias Yaakov "Koby" Nahmias is an Israeli biomedical engineer and entrepreneur. Nahmias is a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an affiliated member of the NIH-funded BioMEMS Resource Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. Nahmi ...

, a biomedical engineering professor of the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

. He became Future Meat's chief scientific officer. The company presented its cultured meat prototype to the public in 2019. In October 2019, it raised $14 million to build its pilot plant, and estimated that it could bring its products to the market in 2022. To achieve this, Future Meat stated in February 2020 that it sought to bring down the price of producing cultured meat to $10 per pound by 2022. In January 2020, ''

Quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...

'' found around 30 cultured meat startups, and that

Memphis Meats Upside Foods (formerly known as Memphis Meats) is a food technology company headquartered in Berkeley, California, aiming to grow sustainable cultured meat. The company was founded in 2015 by Uma Valeti ( CEO), Nicholas Genovese ( CSO), and Wi ...

, Just Inc. and Future Meat Technologies were the most advanced because they were building pilot plants. In June 2021, the construction of Future Meat's pilot plant in Rehovot was completed, and it entered into service. As of November 2021, the facility was capable of producing 500 kilograms of cultured meat per day, or 182,625 kilograms a year. That year it raised a Series B investment round of US$347M.

Technology

The company extracts cells from live animals. It cultures those cells in stainless steel fermenters, where they reproduce and develop into edible tissues. The company claims that reproduction rates are 10x greater than others, while generating 20% of their

greenhouse gas A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorbs and Emission (electromagnetic radiation), emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse ...

emissions. Compared to animal husbandry, it uses 1% of the land and 4% of the water. In 2021, it reduced the cost of a cultured chicken breast from US$7.50 to $1.70.

References

External links

* {{Cultured meat startups Biotechnology companies of Israel Cellular agriculture Food and drink companies of Israel