Memphis Meats making progress
Speaking about progress made to date at Memphis Meats, Dr. Schulze said the company’s production of meatballs, duck meat and chicken meat was a great validation of the potential for the technology.
“We showed we can do mammals and avians,” he said, adding that muscle function is vastly different between birds and mammals.
He said a Wall Street Journal writer who tasted the product described it as delicious.
“Currently, it takes 23 grams of energy to produce a single gram of meat,” Dr. Schulze said. “Our goal is to produce a gram of meat with 3 grams of energy.”
Longer term, the nutrient brew used to cultivate clean meat may be customized for healthfulness, incorporating vitamins and minerals and with the fatty acid tissue optimized, Dr. Schulze said.
Healthfulness also will come in the absence of pathogens, he said.
“There are trillions of bacteria at the grocery store,” he said.
Dr. Schulze said with the elimination of pathogenic bacteria, clean meat will have longer shelf life.
“Our products do not spoil at a normal rate,” he said. “They last much longer in storage. Upward of weeks. The one thing that will make our product go bad or spoil is light, not bacteria.”
While Memphis Meats is looking to commercialize its product by 2020-21, bringing down the cost of production will be key. Costs have been lowered from $18,000 per lb 1½ years ago to $6,000 three months ago and $3,800 most recently. Ultimately, the company is seeking to produce clean meat at cost parity with conventional products.
