Good Meat builds world’s largest bioreactors to produce cultivated meat

26 May 2022 --- Good Meat is scaling what is hailed as industry’s largest known bioreactors for producing avian and mammalian cell-based meat, to be integrated into US and Singapore-based facilities. When fully operational, the company will have the capacity to produce up to 30 million pounds of meat without the need to slaughter a single animal.

The company – which operates as the cultivated meat division of plant-based meat and egg alternatives pioneer Eat Just – inked an exclusive multi-year agreement with engineering solutions provider ABEC to design, manufacture, install and commission the new commercial-scale facility.

“Our first step was receiving regulatory approval and launching in Singapore. Our second step has been selling to customers through restaurants, street vendors and delivery platforms,” remarks Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just.

“We’ve learned that consumers want this, and we’re ready to take the next step to make this happen at commercial scale.”

GOOD Meat is currently partnered with ADM to improve factors such as flavor and texture for its cell-based meat products (Credit: GOOD Meat).Road to 100% slaughter-free
“Many of the materials are already on order for 250,000-liter bioreactors. Because of the size of the systems, they will be built in stages, and materials will continue to be acquired aligned with the manufacturing plan,” details Scott Pickering, CEO and chairperson of ABEC.

Good Meat is planning to finalize site selection in the next three months and is continuing to engage with the Food and Drug Administration and the US Department of Agriculture on a regulatory pathway to market.

ABEC is also designing and manufacturing bioreactors for Good Meat’s Alameda, California headquarters, scheduled to be operational in Q4 2022. With North American manufacturing facilities in Missouri and Pennsylvania, it holds a sizable share of the bioreactor technology market. 

The company developed the first production-scale bioreactors in the 1980s and the first bioreactors larger than 10,000 liters in the 1990s.

Feeding the garden city clean meat
Good Meat remains the first and only cultivated meat manufacturer in the world to secure regulatory approval, with its cultured meat greenlighted for sale in Singapore as an ingredient in chicken bites in December 2020.

Following the inauguration of its US-based factory, a Singapore-based facility is slated to open in Q1 2023.

The Singapore buildout will help meet local consumer demand for GOOD Meat’s products, which have been available for purchase there since December 2020.

In May of 2021, the food-tech trailblazer partnered with JW Marriott Singapore South Beach’s Madame Fan. The Cantonese restaurant is among the first restaurants globally to replace conventional chicken with the cultured chicken.

Bioreactors designed by ABEC (Credit: GOOD Meat).The “garden city” has been leading the charge in Asia’s alternative protein development. Last month, cell-based shrimp manufacturer CellMEAT revealed its ambition to bring its flagship Dokdo shrimp to Singapore by 2024.

Among other notable developments, Singaporean cellular agriculture player Shiok Meats announced its US$12.6 million Series A funding round for the scaling up of cell-based shrimp meat, introduced in dim sum.

In other developments, Singapore-based venture capital firm and business accelerator Big Idea Ventures has attracted interest in its alternative protein fund from significant protein sector giants, including Bühler and Tyson.

Joining forces with ADM
Earlier this month, Good Meat entered a joint development agreement with agri-food titan ADM. This is ADM's first strategic partnership of its kind in the cultivated meat sector, which analysts predict could become a US$25 billion global industry by 2030.

As part of the agreement, ADM will build upon GOOD Meat’s foundational work to optimize the nutrients needed to enable the growth of the cells. 

In the same way, a chicken or a cow absorbs amino acids, vitamins, and fat through consuming soy and corn, Good Meat’s cells require an optimal growth medium for quality, cost and volume. 

“It’s a 21st-century extension of what ADM has done for decades in conventional animal agriculture by supplying the industry with superior livestock feed, supplements, and other ingredients for health and well-being,” ADM states.

The companies will also collaborate on product development projects for GOOD Meat’s cultivated meat products, starting with chicken. ADM’s experience and capacities for food formulation will be used to advance the flavor, texture and other sensory attributes of these cell-based meat offerings.

Good Meat cites the results of a survey, which found that two-thirds of consumers polled are open to substituting conventional meat with cultured meat. Meanwhile, more than 80% of restaurant operators revealed they envision cultured meat replacing all conventional meat in the next decade.

These findings affirm a similar analysis recently published in the journal Foods, which goes so far as to suggest that cell-based meat is likely to make up a “major part” of consumers’ future meals. 

Research suggests cultivated meat may hit cost and competitive benchmarks by 2030.The next food renaissance after plant-based?
Echoing the early onset of the plant-based revolution in food, the cell-based meat movement appears to be in full swing, as greenlit pathways begin to open up for the novel food type. Recent analysis by Dutch research organization CE Delft found that cultivated meat may hit competitive cost and environmental benchmarks by 2030. 

While this new industry segment begins to flood with early operators, commercial opportunities present themselves to those quick enough to jump the hurdles of regulatory approval and achieve commercial scale.

Next to Good Meat, cell-based pioneer Aleph Farms is gearing up for global commercialization with a new 65,000 square foot pilot facility, as the company’s CEO revealed to FoodIngredientsFirst in an exclusive interview.

Upside Foods, formerly known as Memphis Meats, recently closed a US$400 million Series C funding round, which now places the company’s valuation at over US$1 billion.

In the alt-seafood category, Pearlita Foods, a cell-based mollusk company, recently announced that it will soon produce the world’s first “ocean-free” cultured oysters. Start-up Wanda Fish has also claimed to be on track to make a splash in cultivated seafood amid research collaboration with Tufts University, in the US.

Meanwhile, in South Africa, Mogale Meat Co. created the market’s first cell-based chicken breast product. The product – composed of real chicken muscle and fat cells blended with a mushroom matrix – is the first of many prototypes Mogale is planning to roll out.

Other new advancements include the discovery that tobacco plants can be harnessed as a cost-effective source of growth factors for protein cultivation. This may potentially switch out fetal bovine serum used in cell-based production, which large industry stakeholders such as Aleph Farms and Wacker have made moves to eliminate.

By Benjamin Ferrer