Protein unconstrained? Vow COO on boosting cultured meat production amid changing perceptions and laws

Advancements in cultured meat are changing the way the world thinks about meat, in addition to holding immense potential to transform the global food system. As conventional food production grapples with environmental, ethical and social challenges, F&B innovators are increasingly turning toward cell-based technologies to keep up with rising global consumption of meat proteins. 

Cultured meat start-up Vow recently unveiled “Forged Gras,” a cultivated quail foie gras developed without animal intervention. The product is a new take on the French delicacy, which is traditionally made from the liver of a duck or goose.

Food Ingredients First sits down with Vow’s COO, Ellen Dinsmoor, to understand how consumer perception has evolved in recent years with regulatory frameworks warming up to cell-based food and what other animal-derived ingredients the company aims to bring to market.

“Vow was founded a little over five years ago and I’m not sure consumer perception has changed that much since then. Increasing numbers of folks are aware of cultured meat, but nine out of ten times when I mention it to someone, the first thing I still get asked is, ‘How is that similar to a Beyond Burger or Impossible?’” says Dinsmoor.

“A lot of people still associate us with plant-based. The reason is that very few companies in our space have gone through the regulatory processes to bring a product to market.”

Scaling and consumer education

According to the Good Food Institute, cultivated meat and seafood companies have raised US$3.1 billion globally since 2013, the year the world’s first cell-cultured burger was eaten on live TV.

However, despite investments and technological advancements, scaling and consumer awareness still need to be improved. As a result, cultured meat production is still in its early stages, with a handful of companies being approved to place their products on the market.

Ellen Dinsmoor, COO at Vow.“Many companies have struggled to scale and bring those regulatory processes to bear.”

“Often when people think about cultured meat, they’ll immediately mention a lot of different questions in terms of cost and minimizing contaminations in a cost-effective way that meets the needs for food production — and how you can do it all quickly enough.”

“We’ve tried to vertically integrate and bring a lot of our manufacturing in-house after realizing that no one had experience scaling up cell culture for food production. We bought an old bioreactor and set it up within three months to scale our first pilot manufacturing line.”

Dinsmoor says the first line wasn’t the most efficient but gave Vow substantial operating capacity in the long run.

“We now design our bioreactors and have them produced domestically in Australia. We weld them on-site and have systems operate them 24/7, so we have full control over the manufacturing process, which enables us to optimize our learnings.”

“Co-creating” regulatory frameworks

Singapore became the first country to approve cultured meat for commercial sale in 2020, with the US following suit. Vow launched its first product, a parfait made from cultured Japanese quail, under its Forged brand earlier this year in the city-state.

Dinsmoor notes that the cultured meat regulatory landscape is progressing and there is a “degree of co-creating” of these frameworks.

“A lot of regulators have a process today for, generally speaking, this broad category of novel foods. Other proteins might fall into that category and completely different novel products can as well. The reality is that to bring anything to market that is ensuring a safe, high-quality product, we have to go through a very collaborative process with the likes of Singapore.”

“Where I envision this going, ideally, over two to four years, is that if you have several countries that establish an early stage framework, they might start working together to create a global standard.”

She shares that Vow is trying to contribute to a “global dialogue” that includes diverse stakeholders who align on the safety and quality standards of cell-based meat.Dinsmoor notes that the regulatory landscape is progressing and there is a “degree of co-creating” of these frameworks.

“Eventually, you could see this getting toward something similar to GRAS, or Generally Recognized As Safe in the US, where there is at least a domestically accepted standard that many countries recognize and approve as well.”

Leveraging cell culture for nutrition

Even though cell-based meat can be used both as an ingredient and finished product, the start-up wants to “double down” on the Forged brand while vetting consumer expectations, including the demand for higher-quality nutrition.

“We’re also trying to get input from consumers to better understand what needs they have, even if we can’t answer them today.”

“The Forged products are all about a delightful, deliberately different experience than you could have imagined. With cell culture, though, you can also bring nutrition differently to people’s plates than they ever might have imagined.”

She explains how this might play out: “You can have twice the protein content of chicken, but in a quail cell, or you could have the omega-3 from salmon, but embedded in a different species.”

While Forged is currently focused on the luxury and premium space, Dinsmoor reveals it wants to define “a wholly new category” that delivers on taste and texture but also drives consumers to think about cell-cultured meat beyond chicken, pork and beef.

“Our products strive to anchor in some degree of familiarity. That’s why that first cell line is quail — most people might have had it before or think it reminds them of chicken, but we are constantly trying to stretch people to think about these products in an unconstrained way.”