Europe’s largest production site for lab-grown animal products is set to open in London, setting the table for an industry poised for exponential growth.
Meatly, the first continent’s first company to sell cultivated meat, has raised £10.4 million in Series A funding to realise the project, which will see a 20,000-litre bioreactor pilot site built in the UK capital. The facility will ensure R&D capacity for the nascent innovation can be conducted at industrial scale, bringing it closer to mass market.
Investment has come from a number of sources, with food and agri-tech firm Oyster Bay Venture Capital and climate tech-focused finance vehicle Clean Growth Fund both involved. Their combined input comes in addition to £7 million in seed funding already offered by founding investor Agronomics and high street giant Pets At Home.
‘The market opportunity for sustainable and high-quality protein is enormous, but success in this category ultimately comes down to one thing: bringing down the cost of production,’ said Jim Mellon, Executive Chairman at Agronomics and Chairman and Founding Investor at Meatly. The team at Meatly has consistently cracked this challenge, reducing costs by building their own bioreactors, developing their own culture medium, and staying focused on what it takes to scale.’
Although still in its early days, cultivated meat is currently primarily aimed at reducing the environmental impact of pet food. High-end existing brands of dog and cat food, which sell themselves on high meat content rather than low grade offcuts, have been found to have a particularly problematic footprint due to the carbon impact of both the animals used in production, and the feedstocks that sustain them in the months and years before slaughter.
‘Rethinking how we produce protein is an essential part of tackling the climate crisis,’ said Connor Duffy, Investment Manager at Clean Growth Fund. ‘We’ve invested in Meatly because they are showing it’s possible to produce real meat cost-competitively and with a fraction of the environmental impact. The team is focused on building a commercially viable path to scale, which will ultimately determine whether solutions like this can deliver meaningful change. We’re delighted to be backing Meatly as they set out to build Europe’s largest cultivated meat production facility.’
Image: Anatoly Maltsev / Unsplash
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