Mosa Meat : Pioneering a cleaner, kinder way of making beef
The future of Sustainable Meat Production is Here!
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This article will examine Mosa Meat - the trailblazer in the Artificial Meat Industry. For a clear understanding of the artificial meat industry, please check out our previous article: “Exploring the Artificial Meat Market: A Comprehensive Introduction (Part I)”.
Mosa Meat was founded in 2013 by Mark Post, a Dutch pharmacologist and professor of vascular physiology, and Peter Verstrate, a food technologist, Mosa Meat is a Netherlands-based company focused on developing lab-grown or cultured meat.
We want to create a product that is identical to the current product in terms of taste, texture, and nutritional value, but with a fraction of the environmental impact and without the need to raise and slaughter animals - Dr. Mark Post, Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer
In 2013, when Mosa Meat unveiled the world’s very first cultivated beef burger, grown directly from cow cells, it marked the birth of this field with a tangible proof of concept. Since then, several cultivated meat and seafood companies have been founded. In Singapore, a cultivated chicken product has been approved for sales, and in the U.S. the FDA confirmed safety of another cultivated chicken product. This nascent cultured-meat industry is now approaching a new pivotal phase: commercialisation. In this analysis, we will examine 'Mosa Meat' to determine whether the company possesses the necessary qualities for commercial success in the coming years.
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1. Mosa Meat - The future of Sustainable Meat Production is Here!
The company's primary aim is to ‘Replace Meat with Meat’ - create sustainable, ethical, and environmentally friendly meat alternatives by producing real meat without raising and slaughtering animals.
Peter Verstrate, Co-founder and COO states on the company's mission:
Our mission is to produce real meat for the world's growing population without depleting the planet's resources and without causing unnecessary harm to animals.
In 2013, Mosa Meat produced the world's first lab-grown beef burger, which cost around $330,000 to develop. Since then, the company has been working to improve the technology and reduce production costs to make cultured meat more accessible to consumers.
2. The ‘Mosa Approach’ to Cultivating Meat
Mosa Meat uses cellular agriculture techniques to create cultured meat.
2.1 Cell sourcing - Select Cells that Add Value:
They obtain animal cells, typically muscle cells, through a small biopsy and then place these cells in a nutrient-rich culture medium to grow and multiply. About 0.5 gram of meat sample is taken under anaesthesia following standardized veterinary procedure.
Use select cells that have the potential to provide the right nutritional value and the same culinary benefits to consumers. This is the case when using muscle precursor (myosatellite) cells and fat precursor cells that are committed to only become muscle or fat tissue. There are other components in meat, like connective tissue (e.g., cells called fibroblasts that develop into skin/collagen), but apart from providing a form of texture, they do not provide the key characteristics that consumers expect from meat.
2.2 Proliferation and Differentiation:
The cultivation process takes place in two key phases: the first is when individual cells multiply from tens of thousands to trillions of cells (the ‘proliferation’ phase), and the second phase is when they fuse together and become tissue (the ‘differentiation’ phase). The key to making real meat is this second, differentiation phase.
Muscle cells can only become the familiar fibres that we recognize as the structure of meat and produce the meat-specific proteins that provide important nutritional value, when they fully differentiate.
Fat precursor cells can become fat cells (adipocytes) and eventually fat tissue through a process called adipogenesis, where fat molecules called lipids build up to form large droplets inside the cells.
For each sample of fresh beef (0.5 g), company can produce up to 80.000 hamburgers.
2.3 Quality control and safety testing:
The cultured meat products are subjected to rigorous quality control and safety testing to ensure they meet the necessary standards for human consumption. This may include testing for the presence of contaminants, verifying nutritional content, and assessing the product's overall quality.
3. Mosa Meat’s Competitive Advantages
Mosa Meat has several competitive advantages in the cultured meat and alternative protein space, which can be attributed to its pioneering role in the industry, innovative technology, and focus on sustainability:
3.1 First-mover advantage
As the company that created the world's first lab-grown beef burger in 2013, Mosa Meat has established itself as a pioneer in the cultured meat industry. This first-mover advantage has given the company greater visibility, credibility, and a head start in research and development.
3.2 Strong research background
Mosa Meat's co-founder, Dr. Mark Post, is a renowned scientist and an expert in the field of tissue engineering. His expertise and research background have been crucial in advancing the company's technology and driving innovation.
3.3 Serum-free growth medium
In 2019, Mosa Meat developed a serum-free growth medium for cultivating animal cells, which is a significant step forward in terms of cost reduction and addressing ethical concerns associated with using fetal bovine serum (FBS) in the cell culture process.
3.4 Achieving Authentic Taste and Aroma through Genuine Adipogenesis
To the best of our knowledge, Mosa Meat stands out as the only cultured meat company that has achieved genuine adipogenesis during differentiation, rather than merely 'feeding' cells lipids to enhance their composition. True adipogenesis is vital for the taste experience and aroma of mature fat tissue.
The company employs a longer and more intricate differentiation process when cultivating lab-grown meat, viewing it as allowing the beef ample time to mature. Consumers can anticipate Mosa Meat's beef to be virtually indistinguishable from traditional beef!
3.5 Non GMO Approach: Gaining Consumer Trust and Accelerating Market Entry
Mosa Meat cultivates beef by selecting muscle and fat precursor cells as starting material, rather than using genetically modified or immortal embryonic stem cells. This approach offers them an advantage with both consumers and regulators, as genetically modified products typically require significantly longer approval times to enter the market.
3.6 Focus on scalability and cost reduction
Mosa Meat is actively working on scaling up its production capacity and reducing the cost of its cultured meat products to make them more accessible to consumers. The company's ability to achieve price parity with traditional meat will be a critical factor in its market success.
3.7 Commitment to sustainability and ethics
Mosa Meat emphasizes the environmental and ethical benefits of cultured meat, such as reduced greenhouse gas emissions, land, and water use, as well as improved animal welfare. This focus on sustainability and ethics appeals to an increasing number of consumers who are concerned about the environmental and ethical implications of their food choices.
4. Key Achievements
In 2019, company succeeded in developing their own entirely animal component-free growth media, which are performing really well. In some conditions animal component-free growth media is even outperforming FBS-based media.
In January of 2022, company published a peer-reviewed article in Nature Food that revealed descriptions of processes and differentiation medium ingredients. Only two inducers, rosiglitazone and insulin, are needed for serum-free adipogenesis. The simplified protocol translates across several species (cow, sheep, pig, and mouse).
In October 2021, Mosa Meat was jointly awarded a React EU grant for the ‘Feed for Meat’ project, which strives to lower the cost of cultivated beef while creating a robust supply chain to scale up production. This project is co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the React-EU program.
On March 2, 2023 Mosa Meat signed an agreement with their longstanding partner and investor Nutreco to collaborate on creating a cell feed supply chain.
Through this collaboration, they have mastered a crucial step in creating affordable, food-safe and scalable nutritional solutions for the cultivated meat industry. Key components of cell feed are amino acids, minerals, vitamins, and glucose.
In recent experiments, fully matured beef cells fed with these food-grade substitutes showed similar cell density to cells fed with pharma-grade material.
Graph showing muscle cell count for Pharma-grade vs food-grade based medium
Maarten Bosch, COO of Mosa Meat shared the following after signing an agreement with Nutreco:
Our partnership with Nutreco represents our commitment to further develop the cellular agriculture supply chain and bring down costs. Our scientific results are an industry first, proving that food-grade ingredients perform equivalent to pharma-grade in cell feed. This will represent a significant cost savings as we scale up production.
Collaborated with production partner Esco Aster in Singapore.
5. Market Potential
The market potential for cultured meat and alternative protein products is substantial due to various factors such as changing consumer preferences, increasing concerns about sustainability, and the need to feed a growing global population.
Global demand for protein: The world's population is projected to reach nearly 10 billion by 2050, which will significantly increase the demand for protein sources. Conventional animal agriculture may struggle to meet this demand sustainably, leading to an increased interest in alternative protein sources like cultured meat and plant-based products.
Sustainability concerns: The livestock industry is responsible for a considerable share of greenhouse gas emissions, land use, and water consumption. Cultured meat has the potential to reduce these environmental impacts by using fewer resources and emitting fewer greenhouse gases compared to traditional livestock production.
Animal welfare and ethical considerations: Cultured meat can address concerns about animal welfare, as it eliminates the need for raising and slaughtering animals. This ethical advantage appeals to a growing number of consumers who are concerned about the treatment of animals in the food system.
Food safety and public health: Cultured meat production can potentially reduce the risk of foodborne illnesses and antibiotic resistance associated with traditional meat production. By producing meat in controlled environments, it may be easier to ensure high standards of hygiene and safety.
Consumer trends and preferences: More people are embracing flexitarian, vegetarian, and vegan diets, driven by health, environmental, and ethical reasons. This shift in consumer preferences is expected to continue, fueling the demand for alternative protein products.
Technological advancements: As technology improves and production costs decrease, cultured meat and alternative protein products are expected to become more affordable and accessible to consumers, further driving market growth.
The cultured meat market size was valued at $1.64 million in 2021, and is estimated to reach $2788.1 million by 2030, registering a CAGR of 95.8% from 2022 to 2030.
6. Strong Team
The team at Mosa Meat includes experts from diverse fields such as cellular agriculture, tissue engineering, food technology, and business development. All united in bringing responsible eating to your plate. Some key team members are:
Dr. Mark Post (Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer): A pharmacologist and professor of vascular physiology at Maastricht University, Dr. Post is known for his pioneering work in cultured meat.
Peter Verstrate (Co-founder and COO): A food technologist with over 25 years of experience in the food industry, Verstrate leads the company's business and commercialization efforts.
Maarten Bosch (CEO): uses his extensive commercial experience to guide the company.
Dr. Sarah Lucas (Head of Strategy): Dr. Lucas oversees the daily operations and scale-up of Mosa Meat's production processes.
7. Financials
Mosa Meat is private company, based at Brightlands, an innovation accelerator that has supported company’s development from the start.
Mosa Meat has received funding from various investors, including:
Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, who funded the initial research that led to the creation of the world's first cultured beef burger in 2013.
M Ventures, the strategic corporate venture capital arm of the science and technology company Merck.
Bell Food Group, one of the leading meat processors and convenience food providers in Europe.
Blue Horizon Ventures, which led Mosa Meat's €55 million Series B funding round in July 2020. This funding round brought the total funding to around €75 million (approximately $86 million).
In February 2021, Mosa Meat closed its Series B funding round at $85 million. The round included Jitse Groen from Just Eat Takeaway.
In September 2021, actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio announced that he had funded Mosa Meat and Aleph Farms for undisclosed amounts of money.
In October 2021, the European Union invested €2 million towards developing cultured beef for commercial markets.
8. Regulatory progress
Mosa Meat is actively working towards obtaining regulatory approval for its products in various markets. Successfully navigating the regulatory landscape is crucial for bringing cultured meat products to consumers.
In the European Union, Mosa Meat's products would fall under the Novel Food Regulation, which requires companies to submit a detailed dossier to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for review. The dossier should include information on the production process, safety assessments, and nutritional information, among other things. If the EFSA deems the product safe, it can be approved for sale within the EU.
9. Future Vision
The competitive advantages position Mosa Meat as a key player in the cultured meat and alternative protein space, contributing to the development and commercialization of sustainable and ethical meat alternatives.
Mosa Meat started with a 100-millilitre tank. By November 2021, they were producing a few kilograms of meat a month (in 40-litre tanks) in order to prepare for submitting an application for the EFSA's regulatory approval. Company aims to expand the cultivation process to 10,000 litre tanks, which would be scalable to 180,000 kilograms a year.
10. Concluding Remarks
Being a pioneer in the artificial market space, Mosa Meat is focussed to deliver on the promise of cultivated meat that ultimately impact the climate footprint, as well as animal welfare and societal benefits.
The company has optimized its cultivation process to produce delicious and aromatic beef that appeals to meat-loving consumers. By using animal component-free growth media and food-grade substitutes for meat production, Mosa Meat aims to significantly reduce the cost of producing cultured beef.
Mosa Meat's non-GMO approach in selecting initial cells for meat production is advantageous for both consumers and regulators, as genetically modified products typically require longer approval times to enter the market. This approach also expands the potential market for the company, as there are regions such as the EU and China where genetically modified products face significant regulatory barriers.
Therefore, Mosa Meat's approach to producing delicious, affordable, and regulation-friendly cultivated meat is a promising step towards achieving this goal.
11. Call-to-action
As Mosa Meat approaches commercialisation in 2023, they are actively looking to expand their network of strategic and mission-aligned investors, scientific and technical partners, as well as market development partners.
If you are interested in exploring the opportunities, please contact via this partnerships form.