It’s feasible---the concept is already proven, continuing innovation makes it cost competitive

Estimated Cultured Ground Meat Timelines by Leaders in the Cultured Ground Meat Field

Our understanding is that culturing ground meat products involves providing the necessary environment (e.g., a suitable temperature, gas mixture, and growth medium) needed for animal cell replication to occur outside of its normal biological context, and that culturing techniques can derive many millions of muscle cells from as little as one cell. Cultured muscle cells can then be grown into muscle fibers—each only a few millimeters thick— and these muscle fibers can then be arranged to form ground meat products.

A number of ground meat products have reportedly been successfully cultured. As a general proof of concept, in 2013 a ground beef burger was cultured as part of a project reportedly costing $330,000. A few days after that proof of concept, the project head (Mark Post) reported that with current technology, cultured meat could be produced at a cost of $70/kg—which we believe was intended as the estimated cost if using mass production techniques. In June 2016 Memphis Meats reportedly cultured a meatball at a cost of $40,000/kg. In March 2017 Memphis Meats then reportedly cultured a chicken product at a cost of $20,000/kg. There have been a number of informed predictions about the timeline for the availability and cost-competitiveness of cultured ground meat products. Table 1 summarizes these estimates made by leaders in the field of cellular agriculture.

Table 1. A summary of projected timelines for cultured ground meat by leaders in the field of cellular agriculture.

Predictor Year of Prediction Summary of Prediction

In Vitro Meat Symposium3 2008 The first commercial cultured meat products will be available in the next 5–10 years (i.e., 2013–2018) at prices competitive with European beef.

Mark Post 2013 It will probably take 10–20 years (i.e., 2023–2033) before the product is in supermarkets.

Mark Post 2015 If production were scaled up to the necessary level, cost-competitive cultured ground meat will likely be available in 7–10 years (i.e., 2022–2025).

Mark Post 2015 Felt confident that MosaMeat4 would bring a product to market in the next 5 years (i.e., by the beginning of 2021).

Peter Verstate 2016 Premium priced cultured products should be available in 5 years (i.e., 2021), and 5 years after that (i.e., 2026) the products should be cost-competitive.

Bruce Friedrich 2016 It will be 3–5 years (i.e., 2019–2021) before cultured products are cost-competitive with organic grass fed beef and closer to a decade (i.e., ~2026) before they are cost-competitive with conventional meat.

Mark Post 2016 It is “just a matter of several years” before they are ready to sell cultured meat at an estimated price of $10–$20 per burger.

Memphis Meats 2016 Expects to have products available for purchase within 5 years (i.e., expects products to be available by the beginning of 2022).

Mark Post 2017 Estimates that it will take 3–4 years (i.e., 2020–2021) before cultured burgers are on the market for £10–11 (~$12–$14 USD) per burger, and in around 7 years time (~2024) they will be in supermarkets at lower prices.

Peter Verstate 2017 Admitted it will take at least 5–10 years to improve the [production] process and make it cost-effective. Commoditizing the cultured (or ‘clean’) meat will take even longer.

Mark Post 2017 For small-scale, somewhat expensive products, most companies will have cultured meat products on the market in 3–4 years (i.e., 2020–2021). It will probably take another 3–4 years (i.e., 2023–2025) for the price to come down to the level where it’s acceptable for the broader public.

As of early 2017, the prediction that was reportedly from the 2008 In Vitro Meat Symposium seems much too optimistic. Recent predictions from leaders in the field seem to be that some cultured ground meat products will be on the market by around 2021. The recent predictions from leaders in the field seem to be that some cultured ground meat products will be cost-competitive by around 2026.