Are you into that catch 22 situation where you love to eat meat and still not happy about the animal slaughter? Now, you don’t need to get worried. If the promises of the startup Memphis Meats are to be believed, the meats grown into lab could soon hit the market. One of the founders of the Memphis Meats, Uma Valeti who hails from India, is a cardiologist by profession. He was also disturbed by the animal slaughter happening all across the world. He was especially affected by the food-borne illness and contamination at the slaughterhouses.
Valeti got the idea of growing meat in a lab when he saw molecular biologist named Eric Schulze plucking a petri dish from the incubator. Schulze asked Valeti to have a look inside the petri dish with the help of a microscope. Schulze prompted Valeti to locate muscle-forming cells which were taken from a duck. The cells had strands of translucent spaghetti, with bright dots—nuclei.
Schulze then takes out another petri dish. He indicated towards scattered spaghetti strands which were shorter, fatter tubes, like gummy worms. He said that those were mature muscle cells. He further explained that in the next few days, the cells will join together will join together in long chains and will become multicellular myotubes. Schulze said that they'll start spontaneously contracting. After hearing all this, Valeti’s eyes lit up with all kinds of excitement. He was enthused by the idea of meat without animals. His mind was going places after encountering the lab experience.
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The idea of growing meat in a lab is not new as it existed for more than 20 years but no one was ever close to making meat as tasty and as affordable as the conventional meat. If someone succeeds in doing that, then he can tap the global market that's already worth trillions of dollars and expected to double in size in the next three decades.
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Valeti thought that if he continues as a cardiologist, maybe he would save 2,000 or 3,000 lives over the next 30 years but if he focuses on this, he has the potential to save billions of human lives and trillions of animal lives. He now has a team of 10 and has now become successful in cultivating and harvesting edible beef, chicken, and duck in its bioreactors which is also a feat that no one else has achieved. Veleti also aims to expand his team soon as the company expects to have a product in stores by 2021.
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Steve Jurvetson, a venture capitalist, who funded Memphis Meats said, "they are the only one that convinced me they can get to a price point and a scale that would make a difference in the industry." The investors of Memphis Meats include famous names such as Bill Gates, Richard Branson and Jack Welch.
There is a reason why people like Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and Jack Welch are excited at about Memphis Meats. It is not all about making profits alone. Meat is also an ongoing environmental and public-health catastrophe. Livestock account for 14.5 percent of greenhouse gas production and it is expected to go up in the coming years. Global pandemics can easily be caused by overcrowded pig and poultry farms. As the animals are often full of antibiotics, it gives rise to drug-resistant superbugs.
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As per the claims of Memphis Meats, they are now too close to achieving the target of producing lab-grown meats at affordable prices. It aims to brew meat at a price of $2 per pound. They also aim to completely wipe out the custom of slaughtering animals for the purpose of meats. Valeti said, "The status quo in animal agriculture is not OK. That status quo is going to kill a lot of people and it gives all the more reason to bring on the second domestication."
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