U.S.-based cultivated meat producer Clever Carnivore has announced new milestones in its production of scalable, low-cost cultivated pork.
The company says it has made three crucial scientific advancements — low-cost, limited-ingredient cell culture media, high-performance pork cells that grow efficiently and are produced without genetic modification, and a factory design that minimizes costs and maximizes bioprocess robustness. These milestones have been accomplished on a budget of just $9 million since the company’s founding in 2021.
Clever Carnivore’s cell culture media reportedly costs $0.07 per liter to produce at the current pilot scale, with further reductions expected at full plant scale. This is a fraction of the cost of industry-leading media, which are said to range from $1 to $10 per liter.
Meanwhile, Clever Carnivore’s porcine cell lines are highly proliferative and are said to be capable of less than 14-hour doubling times in adherent culture. According to the company, this pushes the limits of what was previously believed to be possible, enabling high-yield cultivated meat production.
“Science-first capital efficiency”
Clever Carnivore has reduced capital expenditure at the plant scale by working with steel fabricators to design inexpensive large-scale bioreactors. The cultivated pork is currently produced in a pilot facility, with two 500-liter stainless steel bioreactors and a third on the way. The company’s demonstration scale plant is designed with low CapEx in mind — buildout costs are projected to be less than $4.5 million, and profitability is expected within the first year of full production.
Clever Carnivore has already developed a variety of cultivated pork products, including bratwursts, breakfast sausages, hot dogs, and meatballs. The response from taste testers, including professional chefs, has reportedly been very positive.
These products are expected to sell at cost parity with comparable conventional meat products. The company is in the process of submitting a dossier to the FDA, and is currently raising funds to support future growth. It has previously secured $2.1 million in pre-seed funding and $7 million in a seed funding round.
“When designing a plant, it is important to consider that this is an FDA-and USDA-approvable facility that will operate in a traditional food production manner,” said Dr. Paul Burridge, chief science officer and co-founder of Clever Carnivore. “We will have a well-validated process, high-level quality controls, and equipment that is proven and can be amortized under known schedules. We can’t have cost-cutting result in a lack of robustness and diminished uptime in the production plant. That would be penny-wise and pound-foolish. Our factory is designed with all these considerations and more in mind.”
