Vow’s quail parfait is on the menu of about six restaurants in Singapore, including one that sells for S$20 (about $15). bar snacks As part of the S$250 tasting menu. Going upmarket is a way to transform cultured meat’s high cost and low production volumes into a luxury proposition, Peppou said. “We believe the biggest challenge we face is how to shape consumer sentiment around this category, and the most efficient way to do that is to It is about being in the most influential place in a relatively limited amount of thinking.”
Supermeat’s Saville says there is “a place” for premium cultured meat products, but he is more interested in a mass market that can complement current meat production. That means continuing to reduce production costs. One option is to mix cultured meat with much cheaper plant-based ingredients. Saville said the company is aiming for a product that is about 30 percent cultured meat cells and 70 percent plant-based ingredients. Several other companies have adopted similar strategies. In Singapore, Eat Just sells cultured chicken strips that contain only 3% chicken cells.
The industry also wants customers to pay a premium because of the potential environmental benefits of producing meat outside of animal bodies. Saville said he spoke to one “very large” pizza company and found that replacing just 5 to 10 per cent of its chicken toppings with farmed chicken would significantly reduce its carbon footprint. He said there was.
Even if we replace just a few percent, $50 billion broiler chicken industry The United States will need to significantly expand its production of cultured meat. “If we’re going to compete with chicken, which is the lowest-cost meat product, we’re going to have to either produce it on a much larger scale or develop lower-containing hybrid products,” said Swartz of the Good Food Institute. speak But with investor funding in short supply, companies will have to get creative about how to get their products out there and achieve many founders’ end goal of replacing at least some of traditional meat production. .
Despite targeting the luxury market, Peppou has not yet made a profit on his farm-raised quail parfaits and foie gras, but the profit margins are much better than when competing with factory-farmed chicken. states. “If you look at a lot of deep tech companies, it’s like a game of trying not to die,” he says. “And figuring out how to stay alive long enough to do well enough to win in a market that probably doesn’t exist yet.”
That means Vow’s path forward may not be all that different from other cultured meat companies. “Volumes are going to be lower and they’re going to be selling primarily to restaurants. They’re going to iterate on these products over time until they get a point of entry into the mass market.” Swartz says. “In the short term, what I’m looking forward to is seeing more people try this for the first time, not just because they’re excited about cultured meat, but because they’re generally curious.”
Updated November 19, 2024, 9pm GMT: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Vow’s cultivated foie gras contained 70 percent quail cells.
