Vital Meat, describing itself as France’s first cultivated meat startup, has announced a strategic partnership with Biowest, one of Europe’s leading producers of cell culture media from animal sources, to scale the production of cultivated chicken.
Biowest has developed a customized serum-free medium for Vital Meat’s cultivated chicken platform that has allowed it to achieve successful pilot productions of cultivated chicken in 250-liter bioreactors.
According to the French startup, it can now confidently produce “kilos” of its cultivated chicken ingredient, marking a key milestone in the company’s growth. With the support of Biowest and its advanced biotechnology, the company states that it is ready to transition to industrial production.
“I am delighted by this partnership with Biowest, which ensures exceptional quality and traceability of our media and guarantees the commercial scalability of our cultivated chicken,” said Étienne Duthoit, CEO of Vital Meat.
Far fewer resources, the same meat
Co-founders Duthoit and Frederick Grimaud launched Vital Meat in 2018 to create cultivated alternatives to meat and seafood, starting with chicken.
To develop its cultivated chicken, Vital Meat extracts cells from fertilized chicken eggs to grow and multiply them in bioreactors, feeding them FBS-free growth media. The harvested cells are then used to make a final product, in this case, a chicken ingredient.
In 2021, the startup told Food Navigator that its ingredient was designed for the next generation of hybrid products with improved taste, texture, and nutritional profile: a blend of plant proteins with cultivated chicken.
The company, an active member of Cellular Agriculture Europe, aims to enter the European market after obtaining regulatory approval. Additionally, the company is eyeing Singapore and the US, where cultivated chicken is already available in restaurants.
“Producing cultivated meat uses far less water and energy resources. It also reduces the need for farming land. Cultivated meat will help meet the increasing world demand for animal-derived proteins, while decreasing the environmental impact,” states the company on its website.
