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The beginning of the article (https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-scale/) completely plays down that the cost of producing lab grown meat has dropped by orders of magnitude in the last decade and is continuing to do so. Instead, the author states that the price of production is high, as if statically high.
"Most of us have a limited appetite for 50-dollar lab-grown chicken nuggets."
The article references a study by Humbird (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bit.27848) based on current costs, especially the costs of amino acids, which are currently produced in small amounts for the pharmaceutical industry. It projects that on a relatively small scale that the costs of production of raw materials would still be prohibitively high.
Unfortunately, as it stands, we have no idea exactly what materials will be used in a few more years for lab grown meat. There are many candidates for driving down the cost of the medium used in cultured meat. This video has a good section on candidates. (https://youtu.be/fMw0aL_7leE?t=1154) I think it's disingenuous to say that the costs of raw materials produced are too high for large scale production when the situation is constantly evolving, and now that there is finally funding being put to work on this.
Though I did like that the author said that it would take several thousand such large facilities to meet the world's total meat supply. Assuming that alternatives to current raw materials are developed, all his calculations would amount to is the world's meat demand being provided more cheaply by just a few thousand factories! haha
MASK231 - Forgot to say good luck with your recuperation following your operation - wishing you a speedy recovery.
Thanks for the heads up on the article MAZK. Well put RWT2 - It's always good to get another perspective. We investors (myself included) do have a natural bias in believing all will be well and this will be a widely adopted technology. Haven't finished reading the full narrative, one for the weekend with a pot of tea to fully digest what's being said, but I get the gist. My overriding thought though is that 'necessity is the mother of all invention'
With 10 billion people on the planet with an increasing requirement for meat and land for our existing animal husbandry being devoured at far too great a rate, cell-ag could just be the solution. I'd like to think it can eat in to existing super agro businesses in time, but if it just fills the gap between 7.8 billion humans and 10 billion humans then it's still a whopping market place.
Predictions are the planet will need to produce up to 70% more meat than we do now in the next 20-30 years to feed the growing demand and population - that's a truly eye watering amount of meat. When current animal agriculture is rapidly turning our planet into an untreated sewer, god forbid what the planet will be like if we continue on the current path.
If garlic bread was once the future, let cell-ag now take its place.
MAZK231 - Thanks for posting. Good to see both sides of the debate as 99% of posts and links on here are simply to unequivocally positive articles which doesn't provide the balance to highlight just how risky this share is. Lots of people on here have said this technology is inevitable. Well, it isn't ! Enormous challenges to overcome and it might not happen at all. But as I keep saying, that's precisely why i am invested because it is so outlandish and speculative that if it did come good (and i do believe there is a sliver of a chance), investment returns could be enormous but it only makes up 1% or so of my portfolio so i can afford to (and half expect to) lose the lot.
I have semi-criticized posters on here for being over-optimistic in the definiteness of their predictions that this will be inevitable and transformative within the next few years. However, i would be equally critical of this report. Trying to make any definitive prediction of technology and markets in 10 years time is a fools game so this somewhat negative report is just as likely to be nonsense. We can't know which side is correct. i think it will all be clearer within the next 5-10 years, but that's miles away from saying that the technology will be commonplace within that timescale. i simply mean we should have a decent chance of knowing if it will gain a foothold e.g. if we have multiple successful IPO's where there is significant institutional investor uptake would be a good pointer. I suspect ii's aren't overly interested right now as there is no company they can take a big enough position in to make a meaningful difference to their overall returns.
Good morning everyone
Yes i know its 2am i can't sleep just had q total knee replacement...
My computer skills are limited so i am unable to provide a link but if you tap in
"The Counter Joe Fassler" an extremely lengthy and critical report on lab meat and how its going nowhere appears
What are your thoughts.