Dutch biotech company Mosa Meat opened a new 2,760 square-meter facility in Maastricht on Monday as it prepares for market entry with its first consumer product — cultivated burgers.
“As this scale-up facility comes online next month, we will have the capacity to make tens of thousands of cultivated hamburgers,” said Maarten Bosch, CEO of Mosa Meat.
Unveiled last October, this fourth facility completes the Mosa C.A.M.P.U.S. (Center for Advanced Meat Production, Upscaling, and Sustainability) with a total footprint of 7,340 square meters, reportedly making it the largest cultivated meat campus in the world.
Hundreds of thousands of burgers
Founded in 2016, Mosa Meat introduced the world’s first cultivated beef hamburger grown “directly” from cow cells in 2013. Through the years, the company has overcome the industry’s challenge of lowering the costs of cultivating meat. It has developed a cell feed without fetal bovine serum using food-grade ingredients in partnership with Nutreco and established a process for cell attachment without scaffolds, among other milestones.
“The facility is designed to grow as demand increases with regulatory approvals and regional market entries, up to hundreds of thousands of cultivated hamburgers per year. And in combination with our contract manufacturer in Singapore, even a lot more. We are excited to debut this great-tasting hamburger today that even hardcore carnivores will love,” continued Bosch.
Mosa Meat is a privately held company backed by Blue Horizon, Bell Food Group, Nutreco, Mitsubishi Corporation, and Leonardo DiCaprio. To date, the company has raised about $100 million to cultivate meat and mitigate the climate impact of industrial beef production.
Serving cultivated burgers in Singapore
Dr. Mark Post, co-founder & CSO of Mosa Meat commented: “When we introduced cultivated meat to the world, we predicted it would take 10 years to create a consumer product. Now, almost exactly 10 years later, we have a consumer product that we can start making in larger quantities and that we can start serving to consumers in Singapore, pending regulatory approval.”
At the opening, the Mayor of Maastricht, Annemarie Penn-te Strake, the Governor of Limburg, Emile Roemer, investors, journalists, and value chain partners visited the Mosa C.A.M.P.U.S.
Renowned Chef Hans van Wolde, who formally joined Mosa Meat’s product development, sensory evaluation, and recipe formulation team, held a cultivated burger cooking demonstration at the event.
“When I first tried a Mosa Burger as part of the internal development team, I was blown away by the beefy taste and the amazing mouthfeel of the beef fat. It gave me goosebumps. I genuinely believe this new way of making beef can delight connoisseurs and casual beef lovers alike while enjoying the positive benefits of cultivated beef from a sustainability perspective,” said van Wolden.
