Cell Based Tech Weekly – Ginkgo Bioworks Invests $14M in Glycosyn, Cell Based on Mars

Today is the Next Gen Good Food Forum in Beijing Zhongguancun, China. It’s hosted by Dao Ventures, a China based venture capital firm established to introduce alternative meat sources to China.

We’re not overwhelmingly excited about the agenda, and are left wondering who from China is going to be attending that is going to take the information and do something with it. If China pumps the money into this that it’s capable of, well who knows the possibilities (the WeChat of cell based meat). The highlights are Shi Liu from BlackRock and New Crop Capital founding member, Chris Kerr (New Crop Capital has a plate full of cell based investments). 

China’s been relatively quiet since the 300 million dollar trade agreement in 2017 with Israel. Why might cell based meat relevant to China now? Recent swine flu outbreaks certainly help the cause. 

Investments

Bye Bye Baby, Formula. Ginkgo Bioworks invests $14 million in Glycosyn LLC to scale production of human milk.  http://cellbased.link/a6ca5

Advancements

New Age Meats realized a 12x cost savings per sausage link since last month. http://cellbased.link/s7155d

Publicity

Tom Mastrobuoni of Tyson Ventures, Christie Lagally of Seattle Food Tech, and Thomas Bowman of JUST, Inc. discuss the future of meat at the 2018 Smart Kitchen Summit.  http://cellbased.link/cf9a7

Cell Based Meat goes to Hollywood, I mean Mars. So says Dr. Michele Perchonok, as part of Nat Geos show, Mars. Season 2 premiered on November 12th. http://cellbased.link/5330a 

Regulation

Unfortunately, many of the public comments about the USDA and FDA Joint Public Meeting on cell based meat production aren’t effectively addressing the question, “How should cell based meat be labeled?”

Submit your comment and help influence the future of food. http://cellbased.link/regulations 

The Support

“[Cell based meat] classifies as meat based on the biology, but should be labeled to identify it as “cell-based” (or equivalent) meat for transparency, although I believe this distinction will become irrelevant once these products are fully accepted by consumers.”

Sam Butler, posted on http://cellbased.link/regulations 

The Opposition

“Meat is made up of at least a dozen different cell types (e.g. fat cells, muscle, connective tissue), always in specific ratios necessary for life (this should be obvious). Cell cultures will never replicate this complexity and will inevitably lead to chronic disease of the humans consuming them due to the lack of our bodies to digest non-evolutionary foods. Maybe we can digest lab grown meat in 2 million years of evolution, but until then countless people will die if it is allowed into the food supply.”

Matthew Klein, posted on http://cellbased.link/regulations