307 million euros … fundraising ! Future Meat Technologies, a start-up headquartered in Rehovot, Israel, has attracted many investors. Most of them are agribusiness and pension fund manufacturers. With this fundraising, Future Meat Technologies counts open an artificial meat production plant in the United States in 2022.
Future Meat Technologies will industrialize the production of artificial meat
Among the new investors, we find ADM Ventures, Menora Mivtachim, S2G Ventures, Tyson Venture, Rich Products Ventures, or even Manta Ray Ventures … This is not the first time that Future Meat Technologies has been talked about. This summer, Nestlé already revealed its interest in artificial meat and announced its collaboration with the Israeli start-up.
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Founded in 2018, Future Meat Technologies has developed a “Process for making artificial meat without GMOs from animal cells”. The start-up is now able to manufacture different types of meat: beef, chicken, pork and even lamb. With this spectacular fundraising of 307 million euros (around 347 million dollars), the Israeli nugget could impose itself widely on the artificial meat market.
Future Meat Technologies starts from the following observation: more and more people want to change their diet and reduce their meat consumption, whether for health, animal welfare or environmental reasons. The Future Meat Technologies nugget intends to meet this new need with its artificial meat.
This fundraising was the final step to successfully industrialize its manufacturing process. Now, Future Meat Technologies is focusing on the opening of its first artificial meat production plant (or cellular meat) on a large scale in the United States, from 2022. The start-up already has a first production line located in Israel, but this will not be enough to industrialize its process.
A growing market?
At the same time as this fundraising, the company announced a reduction in costs on some of its products. This is the case for the production of chicken breast which will increase to $ 7.70 per 500 grams, i.e. $ 1.70 for 110 grams. It’s much cheaper than a few months ago: $ 18 per 500 grams six months ago. At this rate, artificial meat could appeal to catering professionals …
The artificial meat market is expected to reach 140 billion dollars within 10 years, according to forecasts by Blue Horizon Corporation. In fact, artificial meat has already entered the market in some countries. This is the case in Singapore where, at the end of 2020, a restaurant announced that it would sell chicken nuggets made from meat grown in the laboratory. The City-State thus became the very first country to allow artificial meat.
In France, it is probably not for now. Julien Denormandie, Minister of Agriculture and Food believes that “Meat comes from life, not from laboratories. Count on me so that in France, meat remains natural and never artificial! “. Earth should reach 9.7 billion humans by 2050 according to the UN. Under these conditions, new solutions will certainly have to be found.