Owen Ensor: “We don’t want to scale a process that is only suitable for Michelin-star restaurants.”
Image credit: Elaine Watson
The last few years have been pretty brutal for cultivated meat, but can a leaner, meaner, pet food-focused approach prevail?
UK cultivated probably would do it ourselves. What we want to avoid is using equity financing to build large-scale industrial facilities. So we would look at an array of options, whether that’s debt and project financing or whether that’s a joint venture model with a pet food manufacturer or a processor.
AFN: What still has to improve on the efficiency front to get to compelling unit economics?
OE: What we’ve done in the last four years, and what the team has done an incredible job of with [Dr.] Helder [Cruz], our chief science officer, is building the fundamental technology blocks we need.
There’s the low-cost media, the low-cost bioreactor and some low-cost bioprocesses around that, and we’re very confident in the foundations we have.
There are three things we need to do now. First, there’s a bit more optimization to be done on those [three areas above]; second we have to build consistency, so how do we maintain sterility, and maintain control of those processes so we can do them every single week in a uniform manner; and then finally scaling up. So [Australian cultivated meat startup] Vow Foods has gone to 20,000-liters and apparently 30,000-liters and Biopharma has gone to 20,000 and 30,000-liters, so we know it can be done, we just need to do it with our processes and equipment.
AFN: Why have you focused on pet food?
OE: We love being in pet food, we have a lot of interest and support from pet food manufacturers and retailers. Pets at Home, the UK’s largest [pet food] retailer, is one of our earliest investors and biggest supporters, so we have a lot of commercial interest and traction in the pet food world.
It is a market which is booming, and it’s increasingly premium. But we want this to be a mass market product, so we have to get the cost down below £10 per kilogram, which you can do in premium pet foods relatively easily. And so that is where we all need to be targeting.
We don’t want to scale a process which is £50 or £100 per kilogram and only suitable for Michelin-star restaurants.
AFN: What is your basic proposition to pet food companies?
OE: Initially, we talked about offering consumer benefits and commercial benefits. So the consumer benefits are sustainability, animal welfare, and health, because we’re not using antibiotics, steroids, or hormones.
But we also have commercial benefits. So this is a completely controlled, traceable supply chain. Particularly in pet foods, there are often opaque supply chains, and contamination and product recalls are a big challenge.
These are challenges we can help solve because we have a controlled, traceable supply chain and production process. We also have a 24-month shelf life, which is radically better than any traditional meat product.
When I started the company five years ago with [key investor] Agronomics, and when the industry started 10 years ago, we were talking about these trends of there not being enough land on Earth to feed the population, about the meat supply chain being very volatile. Those are still true, and we still face the same challenges.
And whether politicians want to try and ban this or limit this, they’re going to have to answer those same fundamental questions.
So I think in the next five or 10 years, when we start seeing that constraint really come in…. you’re already seeing it; people discuss it with the mega El Niño that will be a real test of our food supply chains… I think having traceable, controlled production methods like we have is going to be increasingly attractive.
Further reading:
Cultivated meat deep dive: After the crash, who’s still standing?
BREAKING: UPSIDE Foods terminates $50m bid for Believer Meats’ US site but “remains interested in the facility”
Exclusive: UPSIDE Foods submits $50m stalking horse bid for Believer Meats’ US cultivated meat facility
