Hampton Creek hunts for ideal mock meat
Hampton Creek is getting into the faux meat game.
Since opening in 2011, the San Francisco company has focused only on plant-based products, such as its eggless mayonnaise, cookie dough and other vegan products. Hampton Creek CEO and founder Josh Tetrick said moving into cultured meat is a big but essential leap.
“We don’t think plant-based alternatives to meat and fish are the way to solve the total problem,” said Tetrick, referring to the problem of feeding the world’s growing population — set to hit 9.7 billion by 2050 — in the face of dwindling resources and climate change.
Researchers at Hampton Creek have been quietly developing labgrown meat — the company won’t disclose which type other than that it’s in the avian family — that it plans to have in restaurants or grocery stores by the end of 2018.
If that happens, the debut will beat competitors like San Leandro’s Memphis Meats, whose cultured meat could be several years further away from reaching the market.
Hampton Creek has attracted over $200 million in funding since its founding. Its vegan spreads and other products, made by formulating pea protein to replace eggs, are sold through major retailers across the country. However, last week Target stores pulled its products from shelves, citing labeling issues and safety concerns, though Target didn’t give any specifics on the concerns. In a statement, Hampton Creek said the allegations were false.
The main roadblock to culturing meat in a lab — essentially producing meat muscle without animals — is how to scale up production so that the retail price comes down to what regular meat costs.
Hampton Creek staff said that when it debuts, its lab-grown meat will cost up to 30 percent more than the animal version, though the price will decrease over time.
The main thing that makes scaling up cellular agriculture difficult is finding alternatives to fetal bovine serum, the traditional medium for culturing tissue, which is not vegetarian and is expensive. For its new cultured meat, Hampton Creek is developing a plant-based medium to grow animal cells, and it’s in the process of pairing up the right plant nutrients with the best cell line for its eventual poultry product.
It estimates that it will produce meat 10 times more efficiently than the traditional means — with less water, land and energy.
Tetrick said he has spoken with CEOs of large multinational meat and seafood companies who showed interest in partnering on the project, perhaps by licensing the technology or equipment from Hampton Creek.