In Belgium, publicly traded cultured meat company MeaTech is planning a pilot plant to grow chicken fat in a lab. The new facility will use a process developed by Peace of Meat, a Belgian company MeaTech recently acquired. The fat will be used to improve the flavor and texture of plant-based meat alternatives produced by partners.
“A key challenge facing the cultured meat industry is cost-efficient production. We believe that establishing this pilot plant facility and scaling up our cellular agriculture technologies will be a significant step forward toward achieving cost parity with conventional meat as well as realizing MeaTech’s vision for the ‘Factory of the Future’ – comprising the inputs, processes and equipment underlying a flexible cultured meat manufacturing facility,” Sharon Fima, CEO of MeaTech, says.
The company hopes to eventually produce full meat products, such as steak or chicken breast, by 3D printing biological material. MeaTech is based in Israel.