meatpacker JBS building world's largest lab-grown meat plant

[everything]

https://www.reuters.com/article/jbs-lab ... reddit.com

SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Brazilian meatpacker JBS said on Tuesday that its subsidiary BioTech Foods started construction in Spain on its first commercial-scale plant to produce lab-grown meat, which is set to be completed by mid-2024.

The factory, which JBS says will be the world’s largest lab-grown meat plant, should produce more than 1,000 metric tons of cultivated beef per year, JBS said. It said it could expand capacity to 4,000 metric tons per year in the medium term.

“The new BioTech plant puts JBS in a unique position to lead the segment and ride this wave of innovation,” said JBS USA’s head of value-added business, Eduardo Noronha.

...

“With the challenges imposed on global supply chains, cultivated protein offers the potential to stabilize food security and global protein production,” BioTech Foods co-founder and CEO Iñigo Charola said in a statement.

JBS said BioTech plans to gradually increase its production capacity to meet growing consumer demand, and sees Australia, Brazil, the European Union, Japan, Singapore and the United States as key markets.

BioTech produces its cultured meat from a sample of cells collected from livestock and grown into a tissue, similar to that produced in the animal’s body.

[yeniseri]

I am now an unofficial vegetarian!
I worked in Big Pharma for almost 2 decades and I can only imagine the 'ingredients" they put to make this lab grown meat!
It's bad enough what they put in processed food today! Food per the past 10,000 years (I am just guessing ) has always had some type of nutrients present ...cows relied on grass and now they are fed grain
and now we have this new Game Plan for Meat.

I am sure the multitude will eat this up! It ain't right, at least for me

[everything]

it certainly sounds weird. it's a sci fi world we're moving toward. our AI over-lord will feed us the cloned meat cells. I guess if you can clone a standard ribeye, you can clone an A5 Wagyu just as easily.

[Steve James]

I'd prefer to eat insects. Even better, farm insects to feed animals. I think manufactured meat is cool, maybe for space travel.

[vadaga]

@Steve James, that is being done. Black soldier fly and mealworm among others are being farmed to produce protein for animal feed for years now. You can also buy insect protein as protein supplements I believe.

As for space, it is more likely that they will be growing tomatoes and spirulina using recycled fecal matter.

I read a good article in 'The Counter' talking about scalability of lab meat... could have sworn I posted it here before but here it is again:
https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-scale/
nutshell version: here on earth, it is possible to produce at scale with good quality but not at a low price. lab meat is a moonshot boondoggle that VCs love because they can sell to their investors. My comment is that if it's difficult to produce on earth then it will be practically impossible to put such a lab into space.

[Steve James]

@Vadaga, I mentioned feeding animals but eating insects instead of animals is normal many places. The cultural baggage is why many people won't do it -unless starvation was imminent. The first person to eat lobster, for ex.

Afa space travel, growing food will require either soil or water. Fecal matter is fine, but garbage in - garbage out. Maybe the solution is carrying a terrarium into space. Um, well, that's what we're on. I agree that the cost of doing anything earthly in space will cost millions more to do in space.

[vadaga]

I've eaten my fair share of fried silk cocoons to be fair. They are believed to increase 'yang' energy

[Steve James]

On that note, I've been taking a silkworm extract to improve memory. I'd say it works, but it could also be me trying harder to remember.

Anyway, why make food, when it's as available as this:

[everything]

yikes, will there be a population boom in rats and birds temporarily with this kind of food supply?

[Steve James]

On that note, I've been taking a silkworm extract to improve memory. I'd say it works, but it could also be me trying harder to remember.

Anyway, why make food, when it's as available as this: