What will it take for cultivated meat to succeed? CEO Eric Jenkusky, of cultivated meat scaffolding biotech company Matrix F.T., is on The Plantbased Business Hour with Elysabeth Alfano.
Specifically, they discuss:
- What is scaffolding and why is it critical to the landscape of growing cultivated meat?
- What is the future for cultivated meat? When will it scale?
- What is the biggest challenge for cultivated meat?
- Will the food sector follow the pharmaceutical trajectory?
- Is there enough B2B demand and where is it coming from?
- How critical are open access research and government spending to support the sector?
- Eric’s thoughts on ‘tech not in our food.’
Here is a short clip and transcript from their conversation. Podcast here.
Elysabeth: What do you think of the future of cultivated meat? When do you see it scaling and, in other words, I mean when do you see it in the hands of the consumer?
Eric Jenkusky: I see the FDA and USDA approving cultivated meat for sale to the consumer later this year.
Elysabeth: Later this year?
Eric Jenkusky: Yes. That doesn’t necessarily mean it will be in your Albertsons or Kroger by then, but it will be approved for sale. Right now, the only jurisdiction in the world that allows the sale of cultivated meat is Singapore. You can purchase chicken nuggets. You can have them delivered to your home via Uber Eats, but soon that will happen here in the U.S. I believe that we will be able to see these products manufactured by some of our customers sometime in 2023. Once it’s approved then the companies need to submit that product for FDA approval to actually be sold to the consumer. One of the things that we work on is being in constant contact with the FDA and the USDA, and because we’re based here in Dublin, Ohio which is a suburb of Columbus. We also work with the Ohio Department of Agriculture.
And, I have to tell you, here in Ohio the state government is really, really excited about our industry. We have three companies in what I call the alternative protein space. We have us, we have Good Catch, and we have Morning Star which has been in the plant-based foods business for years. So, it’s exciting to be able to be someplace where we’re supported here in the city of Dublin as well as the state of Ohio.
Recently Ohio announced that Intel is building their first new chip plant here in the United States not far from where I’m sitting. So good things are happening here in the heartland. I guess my message is you don’t have to be on the coasts to be able to be a trailblazer and a leader in solving the really important problems that we need to solve for humanity.
Elysabeth Alfano is the CEO of VegTech™ Invest, the advisor to the VegTech™ Plant-based Innovation & Climate ETF, EATV. She is also the founder of Plant Powered Consulting and the Host of the Plantbased Business Hour.
