World’s largest vats for growing ‘no-kill’ meat to be built in US
The building of the world’s largest bioreactors to produce cultivated meat has been announced, with the potential to supply tens of thousands of shops and restaurants. Experts said the move could be a “gamechanger” for the nascent industry.
The US company Good Meat said the bioreactors would grow more than 13,000 tonnes of chicken and beef a year. It will use cells taken from cell banks or eggs, so the meat will not require the slaughter of any livestock.
There are about 170 companies around the world working on cultured meat, but Good Meat is the only company to have gained regulatory approval to sell its product to the public. It began serving cultivated chicken in Singapore in December 2020.
Cattle, chicken and other livestock have a huge environmental impact due to methane emissions, the destruction of forests and water use. The consumption of conventional meat in rich nations must fall dramatically to beat the climate crisis, scientists say. Proponents of cultivated meat say it can provide the same taste and feel as conventional meat but with a far smaller environmental impact.
The creation of Good Meat’s 10 new bioreactors is under way, the company says, each of which has a capacity of 250,000 litres and will stand four storeys tall, far bigger than any constructed to date. The US site for the facility is due to be finalised within three months and operational in late 2024, reaching 11,800 tonnes a year by 2026 and 13,700 tonnes by 2030.
The bioreactors are being manufactured as part of an agreement with ABEC, a leading bioprocess equipment manufacturer, which is also making a 6,000-litre bioreactor for Good Meat’s Singapore site – this is scheduled to begin production in early 2023 and will itself be the biggest
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