Lab-meat dubbed one of 2023’s biggest tech failures
It has been a difficult year for alternative proteins, topped off by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Review assessment that laboratory-grown meat is one of the worst technology failures of 2023.
The billions per year ploughed by investors into the alternative protein sector since 2018 have shrank, and might fall further after the world-renowned MIT Technology Review suggested that “cultured” or “cultivated” meat is an example of the spirit of innovation pulling ahead of reality, sometimes with unpleasant consequences, such as finding convoluted ways to keep hopes alive.
The Review magazine cited the example of Upside Foods in Berkeley, California, which had raised more than half a billion dollars of investment.
Visiting journalists were shown rows of big steel bioreactors, but found the company was growing chicken skin cells in much smaller laboratory flasks.
Thin layers of cells were then being manually scooped up and pressed into chicken pieces. The Review magazine said Upside was using lots of labour, plastic, and energy to make hardly any meat.
Samir Qurashi, a former employee, told the Wall Street Journal: “It’s the ‘fake it till you make it’ principle”.
Read full article Share on twitter