You can now buy lab-grown Foie Gras

In an exclusive edition last week at a Recent York sushi bar, a smattering of media and politicians devoured a menu of sushi rolls, Peking duck tapas and mushroom salad. But what made this menu unusual was one ingredient that appeared in the dishes – foie gras made from quail cells brewed in a bioreactor. The event, organized by sushi chef Masa Takayama, was the launch party for Australian cultured meat company Vow, which will sell its foie gras in several restaurants in Singapore and Hong Kong.

The meal was decadent – ​​one dish featured a mountain of black truffles – but that was the main point. Vow and its CEO, George Peppou, view cultured meat as a luxury product, an unusual position in an industry where many founders are driven by animal welfare and are unrivaled when it comes to mass-produced meat. Although growing meat in the laboratory is still extremely steep, Peppou is trying to turn the industry’s Achilles’ heel into an advantage.

“I feel like the obituary has already been written for our industry,” he says. “But just because Californians can’t do something doesn’t mean something can’t be done.”

That something produces cultured meat while also generating a profit. A great challenge facing the industry – with and without bans cash from venture capital— is that growing animal cells in bioreactors is very steep. It is hard to obtain reliable data, but still one scientific article based on data provided by companies in 2021, the cost of cultured meat ranges from $10,000 to $68 per pound, depending on production methods. Many startups claim to have drastically reduced production costs since the first experiments, but prices are still much higher than for factory-farmed chicken about $2.67 per pound.

Two of the industry’s best-funded startups, Eat Just and Upside Foods, have produced products from farmed chicken. Peppou, who cites his reputation in the industry as a provocateur, says this approach makes no sense. “Preparing chicken has always been a terrible idea,” he says.

Cultured meat basics are steep. Growing animal cells outside their bodies is usually the domain of medical researchers and pharmaceutical companies. Animal cells grown in culture are used to produce vaccines and drugs, which are sold in petite quantities at exorbitant prices. The meat industry needs the same ingredients to grow the cells it wants to sell as meat, but unlike the pharmaceutical industry, the industry must grow huge quantities of cells and sell them at store prices.