Mosa Meat

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Mosa Meat
TypePrivately held company
IndustryFood technology
FoundedOctober 2015
FoundersPeter Verstrate, Mark Post
Headquarters
Maastricht
,
The Netherlands
Websitemosameat.com

Mosa Meat is a Dutch food technology company, headquartered in Maastricht, Netherlands, creating production methods for cultured meat.[1] It was founded in October 2015.[2][3][4]

Organisation[]

Post lectures at the 2015 World Economic Forum on cultured meat.

Co-founder Mark Post is a Professor of Vascular Physiology at Maastricht University[citation needed] and serves as chief scientific officer of Mosa Meat.[5] Co-founder Peter Verstrate is a food technologist[5] with a background in the processed meat industry, holding different positions at Sara Lee Corporation, Ahold, Smithfield Foods, Campofrío Food Group, Jack Links, and Hulshof Protein Technologies.[citation needed] He first served as CEO at Mosa Meat, and as of November 2021 is its chief operating officer, Maarten Bosch having succeeded him as CEO.[5] Mosa Meat has several divisions including the Fat Team (led by Laura Jackisch), the Muscle Team, the (stem cell) Isolation Team and the Scale Team.[5] The company had grown to about 100 employees (representing 23 nationalities) by November 2021: 65 people on staff, and the other 35 were working in development, purchasing and HR.[6]

History[]

It's just a matter of time before this is gonna happen, I'm absolutely convinced of that. In our case, I estimate the time to be about 3 years before we are ready to enter the market on a small scale, about 5 years to enter the market on a larger scale, and if you'd ask me: "When will [cultured meat] be in the supermarket around the corner?" That'll be closer to 10 than to 5 years, I think.

– Peter Verstrate, Mosa Meat (2018)[7]: 1:06:15 

The team of scientists headed by Post and Verstrate developed the world's first cultured meat hamburger in 2013, which cost €250,000 (US$330,000[5]) to produce and was funded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin.[8] The production process took three laboratory technicians three months to grow the 20,000 individual muscle fibers that made up the burger.[9]

In February 2017, the company set itself the goal to reduce the production costs to 60 euros per kilogram by 2020.[10]

Mosa Meat estimated in January 2018 that commercial availability of cultured meat could happen around 2021[11] in high-end restaurants at first,[12] at around $11 per hamburger.[13][14] In July 2018 Mosa Meat announced that it had raised a €7.5 million Series A funding round. The round was led by M Ventures and Bell Food Group.[15]

In February 2020, the startup estimated it could enter the market in 2022.[16] In May 2020, Mosa Meat had begun installing its pilot plant in Maastricht.[17] In July, it claimed to be able to produce clean meat '88 times cheaper' than before.[17]

In September 2020, the company obtained 45.4 million euros (55 million US dollars) from various investors, and in December 2020 it attracted another 16.5 million euros (20 million US dollars). Investors included Blue Horizon Ventures, the Bell Food Group, and Mitsubishi. Mosa Meat said it would spend the money on expanding its pilot plant in Maastricht and hiring more personnel.[18] In January 2021, Mosa Meat indicated it would initiate the regulatory approval procedure for its product with the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) during that year.[19]

By March 2021, Mosa Meat had secured over 70 million euros in funding from various investors including Nutreco and Just Eat Takeaway CEO Jitse Groen.[20] In September 2021, actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio announced that he had funded Mosa Meat and Aleph Farms for undisclosed amounts of money, stating: 'One of the most impactful ways to combat the climate crisis is to transform our food system. Mosa Meat and Aleph Farms offer new ways to satisfy the world's demand for beef, while solving some of the most pressing issues of current industrial beef production.'[21]

Originally, the start-up worked with a 100-millilitre tank.[6] By November 2021, Mosa was producing a few kilograms of meat a month (in 40-litre tanks) in order to prepare for submitting an application for the EFSA's regulatory approval within the next six months.[6] In the near future, they sought to produce 100 kilograms per month (or 1,200 kilograms year) per 200-litre bioreactors.[22][23] The last step would be 10,000-litre tanks,[6] which would be scalable to 180,000 kilograms a year.[23]

References[]

  1. ^ "Lab-Grown 'Mosa Meat' To Hit High-End Restaurants Within 2 Years". Green Matters. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  2. ^ Pallab Ghosh (15 October 2015). "Team wants to sell lab grown meat in five years". BBC News. Retrieved 23 June 2018.
  3. ^ "Start-up wil binnen vijf jaar betaalbaar kweekvlees". NOS. 25 January 2016. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  4. ^ De Limburger (20 October 2015). "Commerciële productie van kweekvlees dichterbij". 1Limburg. Retrieved 12 June 2018.
  5. ^ a b c d e Aryn Baker (2 November 2021). "The Cow That Could Feed the Planet". Time. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  6. ^ a b c d Emile Hollman (30 November 2021). "Cultured meat inventor Mark Post: 'Less pollutants in livestock farming without having to go fully vegetarian'". Innovative Origins. Retrieved 9 December 2021.
  7. ^ "Kweekvlees en vleesvervangers - Rondetafelgesprek 26-9-2018". Arnews (in Dutch). Dutch House of Representatives. 26 September 2018. Retrieved 23 October 2018.
  8. ^ Henry Fountain (5 August 2013). "A Lab-Grown Burger Gets a Taste Test". New York Times. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  9. ^ Erin Kim (5 July 2016). "A Closer Look at Cellular Agriculture and the Processes Defining It". AgFunder News. Retrieved 29 June 2018.
  10. ^ Leonie Hosselet (6 February 2017). "Van het lab naar een bord is een lange weg voor kweekvlees". Trouw (in Dutch). Retrieved 26 May 2020.
  11. ^ Steven Musch (10 January 2018). "Met 150 koeien de wereld voeden". AD. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
  12. ^ Rick Morgan (23 March 2018). "Bill Gates and Richard Branson are betting lab-grown meat might be the food of the future". CNBC. Retrieved 23 June 2018.
  13. ^ Charlotte Hawks (8 March 2018). "How close are we to a hamburger grown in a lab?". CNN. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  14. ^ Jessica Leber (20 October 2015). "A Lab-Made Burger Could Be On Sale In 5 Years". FastCompany. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
  15. ^ Jacob Bunge (16 July 2018). "Startup Producing Cell-Grown Meat Raises New Funding". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 17 July 2018.
  16. ^ Martine Kamsma (7 February 2020). "De race om kweekvlees". NRC Handelsblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 25 May 2020.
  17. ^ a b "Mosa Meats Announces it Has Reduced Production Costs by 88 Times". Vegconomist. 23 July 2020. Retrieved 20 August 2020.
  18. ^ "Kweekvlees-start-up Mosa Meat haalt nog eens 20 miljoen op". 1Limburg (in Dutch). L1. 7 December 2021. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  19. ^ Robin Goudsmit (23 January 2021). "Wanneer eten we in Nederland gekweekte kipnuggets?". Trouw (in Dutch). Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  20. ^ "Nederlands bedrijf haalt 40 miljoen op voor de productie van kweekvlees". de Volkskrant (in Dutch). 23 March 2021. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  21. ^ Bryan Walsh (22 September 2021). "Exclusive: Leonardo DiCaprio invests in cultivated-meat startups". Axios. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  22. ^ Flora Southey (25 September 2020). "How will Mosa Meat spend its latest $55m injection?". Food Navigator. Retrieved 9 December 2021.
  23. ^ a b Louis Gore Langton (19 October 2020). "Food for thought: cultured meat maker brings in $55m in funding". DutchNews.nl. Retrieved 9 December 2021.

External links[]

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