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Speaker 1: It's the big take from Bloomberg News and I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: I'm West Gasova today. Are you ready for meat that's

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Speaker 1: grown in a lab? Plant based meat alternatives who are

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Speaker 1: really hot there for a while, you know, Impossible Burgers

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Speaker 1: and Beyond Meat. But some of those companies have struggled

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Speaker 1: a bit lately to reach past vegetarians and vegans and

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Speaker 1: persuade actual meat eaters to make the switch. Now comes

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Speaker 1: the next new thing, lab grown meat. It's made with

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Speaker 1: the cells of cows or chickens or whatever protein you're

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Speaker 1: trying to recreate, and like the name says, it's grown

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Speaker 1: in a lab into meal sized portions. It's still in

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Speaker 1: the early stages, just a handful of companies. There's one

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Speaker 1: in Israel and other in Singapore or some others that

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Speaker 1: are actually selling small quantities. It's expensive, it uses a

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Speaker 1: ton of energy, and the way it's made still requires animals.

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Speaker 1: And then there's a I don't know factor, but has

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Speaker 1: it taste? Bloomberg podcast producer Ascar Board in London recently

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Speaker 1: had a chance to try some lab grown chicken. Here's

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Speaker 1: what he said. We got this email from a company

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Speaker 1: called eat just, and they said, would you like guys

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Speaker 1: like to come and try our new cultivated chicken. They're

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Speaker 1: a Singapore and company and they invite us us down

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Speaker 1: to this kind of secluded seashore villa. So everything was

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Speaker 1: kind of setting up this really nice atmosphere, felt very like,

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Speaker 1: you know, high end. And the first course we had

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Speaker 1: was a fried chicken skewa and it was pretty good,

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Speaker 1: much much better than I was expecting. It was really

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Speaker 1: really I would say it's chicken, so it's chicken esque.

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Speaker 1: It kind of looked like tofu. I think the candle

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Speaker 1: light helped so you can see it too too clearly

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Speaker 1: looked a bit like tofu, had the texture roughly of tofu,

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Speaker 1: but it definitely did taste like chicken ska. We had

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Speaker 1: the skin and then the third piece, which was meant

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Speaker 1: to be like a piece of chicken breast, and it

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Speaker 1: was an actual piece of meat that when you cut

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Speaker 1: into it did actually resemble meat. It looks like chicken

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Speaker 1: and mixed in with rice, which was served with I

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Speaker 1: don't think you'd be able to notice the difference. The

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Speaker 1: only problem is the price, which they wouldn't tell us.

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Speaker 1: So how long until this stuff starts showing up at

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Speaker 1: your supermarket or your favorite restaurant. My colleagues Dinashankar in

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Speaker 1: New York and Preaan in San Francisco had been reporting

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Speaker 1: on the rise of meat alternatives and tasting a bit

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Speaker 1: of it themselves, And they're here with me now, pre

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Speaker 1: and you know, thanks so much for being here, Thanks

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Speaker 1: for having us, happy to be here. So, just a

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Speaker 1: couple of years ago, plant based meats seemed to be

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Speaker 1: the really cool thing yet beyond beef impossible burger. They

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Speaker 1: were all competing to get into mcdonaldsenburger King, And lately

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Speaker 1: it's not been going so well. What exactly is happening

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Speaker 1: and why has plant based meat been hitting kind of

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Speaker 1: rough times? Different things out of beyond and impossible, But

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Speaker 1: neither one of them is doing what the founders and

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Speaker 1: I'm sure investors had hoped, which was to just grow

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Speaker 1: exponentially forever and eventually knocked beef off the plate. That

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Speaker 1: just does not seem to be happening as of yet.

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Speaker 1: The reasons why are I think they come down to

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Speaker 1: a few. One is they just don't taste good enough yet.

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Speaker 1: If you're a meat eater. A lot of meat eaters

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Speaker 1: try these, and a lot of them are are impressed.

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Speaker 1: But not impressed enough to order it regularly as their substitution.

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Speaker 1: They're also still more expensive, so you're not only asking

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Speaker 1: people to maybe trade in something that they don't like

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Speaker 1: as much, but it also cost more money. So that's

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Speaker 1: a hard ask, especially when prices are going up across

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Speaker 1: the board. And then there's the health question. To Dina right,

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Speaker 1: the health claims that Beyond made were really big. They

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Speaker 1: said that their products were going to help solve heart

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Speaker 1: disease and cancer. They talked about the performance improvements that

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Speaker 1: some of their investor athletes saw from eating their products.

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Speaker 1: But that's just not really shaking out. And I've spoken

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Speaker 1: to several doctors, including too that Beyond Meat directed me too,

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Speaker 1: and all of them say, listen, this isn't a health food.

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Speaker 1: One of them told me that at least it is

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Speaker 1: healthier than like a red meat burger, but that's not

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Speaker 1: saying much. It's a really low bar. And then another

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Speaker 1: one who's actually done research funded by Beyond Meat and

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Speaker 1: has done a study that looked at them that found

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Speaker 1: improvements in cholesterol and weight, But the doctor who ran

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Speaker 1: the study said he's still undecided on health benefits. It

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Speaker 1: was one study, and you can't make any kind of

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Speaker 1: big claim with just one study, and I think overall

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Speaker 1: consumers took a closer look, uh and said, this is

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Speaker 1: really processed, and there's a lot of sodium in it,

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Speaker 1: and I don't recognize some of these ingredients, the same

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Speaker 1: kinds of things consumers have been told for years to

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Speaker 1: be on the lookout for as we sort of are

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Speaker 1: constantly bombarded with health claims from big food companies. I

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Speaker 1: should also add, of course, the beef industry also jumped

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Speaker 1: in on the criticism on the health front. Who were

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Speaker 1: they originally trying to pitch this too? It seems like

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Speaker 1: there's two people. If you're trying to serve the vegan audience,

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Speaker 1: well that would be a pretty palatable alternative to people

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Speaker 1: who want something that's beef like but they're not going

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Speaker 1: to eat beef. But if you're trying to go after

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Speaker 1: actual beef eaters, it seems like it would be a

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Speaker 1: harder cell. Is that what is happening is that what

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Speaker 1: they're finding so absolutely the target audience for this was

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Speaker 1: me eaters, with the idea that if not a full

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Speaker 1: conversion of your diet, at least meal by meal today

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Speaker 1: instead of having your whopper, you have an impossible whopper.

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Speaker 1: What has been shown, however, is that the most loyal customers,

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Speaker 1: the people that are buying the most per capita, are

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Speaker 1: the vegans and vegetarians. Now, the flexitarians that are trying

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Speaker 1: to cut down their meat eating also do by these products,

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Speaker 1: but at a lower rate. Now at restaurants. Um, what

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Speaker 1: we've been told is that restaurants often want to have

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Speaker 1: these in stock because they want to have something for

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Speaker 1: the vegetarian in the group. In the food world, there's

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Speaker 1: something known as a veto vote, and that is the

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Speaker 1: loan vegetarian in the group of five or six people

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Speaker 1: who basically gets the decision making power over where they

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Speaker 1: go to lunch because you look at the menu and

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Speaker 1: you say, we can't go there. There's nothing for me

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Speaker 1: to eat. So restaurants are now being a lot more

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Speaker 1: conscientious about protecting themselves against losing customers that way. So

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Speaker 1: what are they doing. They're getting these burgers, which are

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Speaker 1: a super easy way for them to keep in stuck.

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Speaker 1: But they're not doing it because they think that the

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Speaker 1: meat eater is going to convert. It's it's for that vegetarian.

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of these companies forget that food

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Speaker 1: is personal, food is cultural, and you can't make these

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Speaker 1: broad proclamations about how you're going to eliminate a certain

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Speaker 1: category without people feeling some kind of way. And now

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Speaker 1: there's something new rising which is not just plant based

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Speaker 1: meats but sell based meat. You've written quite a bit

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Speaker 1: about this. Can you explain exactly what it is and

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Speaker 1: how they make it? Cell based meat is meat or

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Speaker 1: basically they take the simplest version of as They take

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Speaker 1: animal cells and they grow them in giant tanks in

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Speaker 1: sort of a lab slash factory setting, and the promise

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Speaker 1: is that this is something where animals are not getting

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Speaker 1: slaughtered once they're raised. Everything's grown in a tank, and

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Speaker 1: then the ideal that these companies have is that it

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Speaker 1: comes out also tasting like real meat. Now, Dina and

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Speaker 1: I can unpack all the different challenges and sort of

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Speaker 1: unknowns in the space too, but that's the whole promise

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Speaker 1: that you end up with a at that is made

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Speaker 1: technically of meat cells and did not involve actually hurting

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Speaker 1: any of the animals. Have you tasted sell based chicken

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Speaker 1: or beef to even try it? You have to, you know,

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Speaker 1: if you're at upside foods, which is based in Emeryville, California,

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Speaker 1: in the Bay Area. Um I went over there a

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Speaker 1: couple of weeks back. One of their food scientists whipped

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Speaker 1: up a little piece of chicken smaller than size of

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Speaker 1: a playing card and browned it on a pan. He

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Speaker 1: made sure to note for me that it was browning

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Speaker 1: like a normal piece of meat would. Um He had

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Speaker 1: put some oil in the pan, just neutral oil, the

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Speaker 1: salt and pepper and the meat. Then he eventually added

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Speaker 1: white wine butter sauce into their You know, if you're

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Speaker 1: covering something in a buttery wine sauce, it's going to

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Speaker 1: taste like the sauce, But you can't even get a

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Speaker 1: huge sense of what this thing actually is until it's

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Speaker 1: actually available for people. Did it taste like chicken? It

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Speaker 1: had a light chickenney flavor? Her? What was the texture like?

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Speaker 1: He said, couldn't quite taste because they doctored it up,

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Speaker 1: But did it feel like chicken? Well, so the company

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Speaker 1: said that that was its filet product, and it was

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Speaker 1: supposed to have sort of fibers the way a piece

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Speaker 1: of chicken has fibers. But to me, the texture more

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Speaker 1: closely resembled uh kebab. Maybe made out of ground chicken. Um.

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Speaker 1: I cook a lot of food, and I cook a

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Speaker 1: lot of chicken in my own home, and looking at

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Speaker 1: that and tasting it, it did resemble the texture of

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Speaker 1: the ground chicken patties, specifically more than the texture of

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Speaker 1: chicken thigh in my own home or buying a piece

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Speaker 1: of chicken breast. So and I also tried a salmon.

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Speaker 1: The salmon, I have to say, was really impressive. It

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Speaker 1: was like a piece of salmon sashimi. It's made by

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Speaker 1: wild Type and this is a cell based salm, a

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Speaker 1: cell based salmon um. And it's interesting because actually they

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Speaker 1: use a plant based scaffold, which is the sort of

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Speaker 1: the infrastructure that the cells will cling to to create

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Speaker 1: a food product um. And so some companies are using

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Speaker 1: plant product for that purpose. And it worked really well.

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Speaker 1: I thought it was a very impressive piece of salmon.

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Speaker 1: So that's chicken and salmon. But what about beef? A

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Speaker 1: lot of people want to know about that. And in December,

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Speaker 1: our colleague Devin Leonard wrote a story for Bloomberg Business

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Speaker 1: Week about and Israeli startup. It's called Olive Farms and

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Speaker 1: they're producing lab grown steak. Devin wants to see their

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Speaker 1: operation and he got a chance to taste it. Here's

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Speaker 1: how he describes it. It does taste like steak. It's

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Speaker 1: very it's very thin, and they haven't really figured out

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Speaker 1: yet how to make thicker steaks, so so it looks

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Speaker 1: like what you you know, I guess what we referred

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Speaker 1: to are used to refer to those minute steaks. And

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Speaker 1: interesting enough, it had what's it, what looked like blood

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Speaker 1: and I guess it taste of taste like blood, but

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Speaker 1: which it turned out was actually these of ingredients that

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Speaker 1: they used to actually grow you know, the cell growing steaks.

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Speaker 1: And I mean, I mean that's that's the one thing.

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Speaker 1: You know, you bite into it, you're like, okay, you know,

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Speaker 1: you know this is a steak or something steak. Liked

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Speaker 1: it did feel, you know, feel like I was actually

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Speaker 1: eating steak and you know, and not something that looked

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Speaker 1: like steak. But then but then it felt really different,

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Speaker 1: you know, you know, you know, you know, my stomach.

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Speaker 1: But steakewise, I mean, it tastes fine. Dina and Prea,

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Speaker 1: please stay with me. We'll keep this conversation going after

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Speaker 1: the break. As I understand it, in order to grow

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Speaker 1: this sub based me. It's a huge industrial operation. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and it's incredibly labor intensive and incredibly energy and intensive.

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Speaker 1: Can you talk about how they actually do it. It's

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Speaker 1: incredibly energy intensive. And the thing is the company is

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Speaker 1: in this space don't currently have the equipment to a

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Speaker 1: scale produce this product. There are right now making samples,

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Speaker 1: some in the very small scale number of pounds per year.

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Speaker 1: Part of that is because they don't have all the

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Speaker 1: regulatory approvals to be able to sell the product in

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Speaker 1: the first place. But part of it is the science

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Speaker 1: and um. As one investor told us, this isn't necessarily

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Speaker 1: a cupcake recipe that you can say like, Okay, I'm

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Speaker 1: making twelve pounds today to make a hundred pounds or

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Speaker 1: two hundred pounds or thousands of pounds, I just multiply it.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't really work that way. And so they haven't

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Speaker 1: gotten to the point where they're producing and mass yet,

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Speaker 1: so it's very unclear how that whole thing will work

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Speaker 1: and if they'll ever get there. Dina, I think it's

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Speaker 1: important that we explain to people just some of the

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Speaker 1: ways that these products actually get made. I think it's

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Speaker 1: important for people to know that when these companies talk

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Speaker 1: about slaughter free meat. It creates this perception that animals

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Speaker 1: are completely far away from what's happening, and that's not

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Speaker 1: necessarily the case. Yeah, So when you grow these cells

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Speaker 1: that have been extracted from an animal, these cells need

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Speaker 1: to be fed right, and they need to know to

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Speaker 1: be growing. And one of the components that are used

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Speaker 1: to grow the cells is often, but not always, something

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Speaker 1: called fetal bovine serum. Fetal bovine serum is really common

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Speaker 1: in the pharmaceutical industry. It's made from extracting blood from

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Speaker 1: the fetus of a slaughtered cow. Um. So the cow

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Speaker 1: was pregnant when she was slaughtered, and then the fetus

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Speaker 1: has taken out and they take some blood from the

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Speaker 1: fetus to make this fetal bovine serum. Not all companies,

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Speaker 1: but many of the companies use this fetal bovine serum

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Speaker 1: to grow their cells. It's an issue within the industry. Now.

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Speaker 1: Some of them have made not using this central part

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Speaker 1: of what they do. Others are still using it. Others

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Speaker 1: say they can do without it, but sometimes they use it.

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Speaker 1: So you get kind of different answers about different companies

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Speaker 1: and what they do with it. But sir, only the

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Speaker 1: industry is not at this point at a slaughter free state,

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Speaker 1: so that serum is used in the production of other

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Speaker 1: kinds of cell based meat, not just beef. That's right,

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Speaker 1: fetal bulvine serum can be used to grow any of

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Speaker 1: the animal cells, whether it's beef, chicken, poor. It's not

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Speaker 1: animal specific to just beef, even though it comes from account.

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Speaker 1: Aside from the ethical issues involved in the fetal bovine serum,

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Speaker 1: there just isn't enough of it. That product exists for

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Speaker 1: the pharmaceutical industry at this point. And so if the

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Speaker 1: cell based industry wanted to, you know, become like a

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Speaker 1: substantial source of meat for humanity, if they were using

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Speaker 1: fetal bovine serum, they'd need a lot more than is available.

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Speaker 1: And that's actually true of everything else that they feed

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Speaker 1: the cells, the amino acids, the sugars, the whatever. Um.

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Speaker 1: There just isn't enough of any of it. The companies

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Speaker 1: in this space don't necessarily talk about it as openly

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Speaker 1: as you would assume if this is so paradoxical to

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Speaker 1: the ultimate goal. But that is one thing that people

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Speaker 1: should know that there's a skull out there to get

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Speaker 1: away from that. But there's still some of it happening

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Speaker 1: to help grow the cells. The importance of fetal bovine

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Speaker 1: serum to this industry is I think an open question,

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Speaker 1: because you do have companies like Believer Meats that have

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Speaker 1: said they don't use that they never used it, it's

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Speaker 1: not important to them. Um. You also have a company

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Speaker 1: like eat Just which says they don't need it. They've

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Speaker 1: developed a process to go without it, but the product

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Speaker 1: that they're selling in Singapore still uses it because that

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Speaker 1: is all they have approval for from the government. So

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Speaker 1: every company has its own answer on this question um

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Speaker 1: as to how important fetal bovine serum is to them,

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Speaker 1: And I think that how important it is to the

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Speaker 1: industry is right now, it's unknown. We don't really know.

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Speaker 1: So how far away do you think we are before

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Speaker 1: we start to see cell based chicken, cell based beef,

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Speaker 1: you know, or I'm at the grocery store. Years, at

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Speaker 1: least at the supermarket, definitely years. I don't think it's

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Speaker 1: implausible that basically as soon as one of the company's

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Speaker 1: goes through all the regulatory steps and gets the clearance

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Speaker 1: to sell, I think immediately on that at that point

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Speaker 1: we will see that company put some product in a

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Speaker 1: very small number of restaurants is my guess as to

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Speaker 1: how this will roll out. It will be very small, supermarket,

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Speaker 1: mass commercial. They haven't even shown that they can even

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Speaker 1: do that. They don't have the materials to do that.

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Speaker 1: But they can make small amounts. And the company eat Just,

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Speaker 1: for example, is selling small amounts of its chicken in Singapore,

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Speaker 1: and both eat Just and Upside have told me essentially

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Speaker 1: that they're ready or they'll be ready when they get

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Speaker 1: the go ahead from the US government. When Dina says restaurants,

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Speaker 1: this isn't like McDonald's or Burger King or somewhere where

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Speaker 1: these cell based meat products are going to be available

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Speaker 1: to the masses. Upside has a partnership with Dominique Krenn,

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Speaker 1: a chef and San Francisco. Her restaurants very very high

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Speaker 1: end and pricey, and Domini kren has said she'll use

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Speaker 1: their chicken product in her restaurant once it's available, and

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Speaker 1: she can. That's actually also though how impossible. First scot

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Speaker 1: its foothold was it launched in Momofukunihi with David chang

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Speaker 1: Um and that got them a lot of headlines, name recognition.

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Speaker 1: It meant that like look a real very highly respected

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Speaker 1: chef who loves meat is willing to sell our burger.

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Speaker 1: So I think it's actually a super smart marketing play

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Speaker 1: when you have very little product to sell it through,

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Speaker 1: like your best ambassador, which in food is going to

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Speaker 1: be a high end chef. We'll be right back where

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Speaker 1: we saw say impossible and beyond those are reasonably faced

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Speaker 1: and people still aren't flocking toward it because they don't

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Speaker 1: like the product itself as much as the people who

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Speaker 1: made it thought they would. I suppose something like cell

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Speaker 1: based meat would have to have buy in from vegetarians

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Speaker 1: and vegans. How have they responded to the idea of

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Speaker 1: cell grown meat, especially because as you describe it actually involves,

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Speaker 1: you know, animal cells. I think that really comes down

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Speaker 1: to the individuals. It's hard to say. Eat Just, which

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Speaker 1: does have its product in Singapore in some areas for

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Speaker 1: limited sale, says on its website that like, this is

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Speaker 1: not a vegetarian product. There are animal cells involved in this.

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Speaker 1: But again, I think it goes back to how someone

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Speaker 1: might define being vegetarian for themselves. Some people who are

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Speaker 1: vegetarian eat eggs, some people don't, for example. And the

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Speaker 1: other thing is this is not available commercially in the

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Speaker 1: US are really in much of the world. Even in Singapore,

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Speaker 1: the sales are very limited of these cell based meat products.

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Speaker 1: I will also say as far as vegan sagittarians, it

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Speaker 1: also depends on what their motivation is. You have a

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Speaker 1: lot of I think young people that are making dietary

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Speaker 1: changes because of their concerns about climate and this industry

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Speaker 1: promises that their products will be better. Now, as it

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Speaker 1: turns out that has yet to be proven that they

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Speaker 1: will be less environmentally impactful product than the real thing.

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Speaker 1: With the exception of beef. If you're not eating meat

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Speaker 1: because you're concerned, or you're eating less meat because you're

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Speaker 1: concerned about the environment, then this is likely going to

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Speaker 1: get your interest. But if you take a closer look

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Speaker 1: at the environmental credentials, you might say, I'm not persuaded.

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Speaker 1: What about how healthy this is? Is it healthier than beef?

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Speaker 1: Is it healthier than chicken? When it comes to saturated

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Speaker 1: fats and other sorts of things that people are trying

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Speaker 1: to cut down, I don't think we can know that

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Speaker 1: until the company's release a product to the public that

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Speaker 1: includes nutrition facts. Who are the investors in these press

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Speaker 1: who's seeing the future? Are traditional meat industry companies looking

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Speaker 1: at this as a future and trying to get on

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Speaker 1: or are they trying to protect against it. Well, it's

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Speaker 1: an interesting assortment of investors. You've got like the celebrities

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Speaker 1: Leonardo DiCaprio as an investor. He also invested in Beyond Meat.

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Speaker 1: You've got the Whole Foods former CEO John Mackie. You've

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Speaker 1: got the Singaporean government which has a venture arm which

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Speaker 1: has backed a number of these companies and they do

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Speaker 1: a lot in the food and food security space. And

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Speaker 1: the meat companies have gotten involved to Tyson as an

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Speaker 1: investor and Upside from when it was known as Memphis Meets.

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Speaker 1: There are more than a hundred companies in the cell

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Speaker 1: based meat space that have gotten funding over the last

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Speaker 1: couple of years. But I mean there are some much

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Speaker 1: larger players like Upside and Eat just you know, being

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Speaker 1: the first to launch in Singapore, but there are a

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Speaker 1: lot of smaller companies in this space. And the thing

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Speaker 1: is they're just not all going to make it through

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Speaker 1: this economy. They're not all going to continue getting funding.

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Speaker 1: Maybe in the slush fund years of one they were

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Speaker 1: able to get some money and ride the high of

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Speaker 1: investor excitement around this really idealistic vision of eliminating the

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Speaker 1: slaughtering process from meat, but especially with the plant based

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Speaker 1: meat slowing down already, in some concern around whether or

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Speaker 1: not cell based meat will actually when it. When it

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Speaker 1: does one day get past all the hurdles of getting

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Speaker 1: them raw materials, getting the technology to scale, making products, etcetera,

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Speaker 1: will people even accepted. I think a lot of investors

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Speaker 1: will be scared off and there will be a culling

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Speaker 1: of the companies over the next couple of years. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I guess that a question about whether people will accept

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Speaker 1: it is an interesting one because you know, a lot

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Speaker 1: of people eat meat, and they've made peace with the

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Speaker 1: idea that you're slaughtering an animal to provide meat, and

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Speaker 1: yet there's that reaction of kind of like do cell

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Speaker 1: based meat where that somehow seems like a step too far,

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Speaker 1: whereas traditional meat isn't. Do you think there's gonna be

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Speaker 1: a big barrier to get people to want to eat it?

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's just going to depend on

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Speaker 1: different populations of people. I was actually surprised. I asked

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Speaker 1: my niece who's she's fifteen. I asked her if she

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Speaker 1: would eat it and she was like, yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: she caveated with as long as it's kosher because she's

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Speaker 1: like a good Jewish girl. But um so, I think

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Speaker 1: young people are much more open to it than older generations.

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Speaker 1: But what we found with the plant based meat, and

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Speaker 1: I think what we've always known about meat in general

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Speaker 1: in this country is that it's really emotional. Food is

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Speaker 1: emotional generally, and meat is really emotional. There's a lot

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Speaker 1: tied up in meat choices, and so how this is

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Speaker 1: perceived and what the consumer acceptances we'll have to wait

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Speaker 1: and see. But um, I wouldn't think it's just going

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Speaker 1: to be an easy bait and switch. And the other

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Speaker 1: thing is some of these products are going to be

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Speaker 1: sort of blends when they're released to consumers ultimately in stores,

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Speaker 1: Like when when they get to that point, they're not

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Speaker 1: even going to mostly be like here is of cell

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Speaker 1: based chicken thigh equivalent. They're going to be mixtures that

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Speaker 1: have plant based products and some of the cell based

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Speaker 1: meat product to create nuggets and things like that. And

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Speaker 1: when we're already seeing a slowdown in that space, um,

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Speaker 1: I think it's a valid question to wonder how people

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Speaker 1: will feel about that, and then again, you're getting into

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Speaker 1: the question of, well, are people moving further away or

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Speaker 1: are people trying to move further away from processed food?

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Speaker 1: And what just crosses me into different people prea Anan

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Speaker 1: Dina Shanker, thanks so much for talking with me today.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, thanks for having us. You can read more

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Speaker 1: of ENA's and prey As reporting on Bloomberg dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take,

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