The problem is that while we already know how to make cultivated meat<\/a>, we don\u2019t yet know how to make a lot<\/em> of it at a price that\u2019s competitive with traditional sources of meat \u2014 and if we can\u2019t figure that out, it\u2019s hard to imagine cultured meat<\/a> ever living up to its potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We can make it on small scales successfully,” Josh Tetrick, CEO of Eat Just<\/a>, told the Wall Street Journal<\/a> in 2023. “What is uncertain is whether we and other companies will be able to produce this at the largest of scales, at the lowest of costs within the next decade.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We’ve systematically rethought the bioreactor.”<\/p>\nYossi Quint<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The startup: <\/strong>Yossi Quint (formerly an analyst at McKinsey<\/a>) founded Ark Biotech to help solve cultivated meat\u2019s scaling problem by rethinking the most essential piece of the production process: the bioreactor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe’ve systematically rethought the bioreactor and invented a bio manufacturing platform that predictably scales from bench to commodity scale while maintaining peak performance,\u201d Quint told Freethink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The machine: <\/strong>Bioreactors are containers that provide the ideal environment for cells or microorganisms to grow. They\u2019re used to make everything from beer to vaccines, and now, scientists are loading them up with cells from living animals and substances that encourage cell growth to make meat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most commonly used type of bioreactor for cultivated meat production is a stirred tank reactor<\/a>. It looks sort of like a big stand mixer, with a paddle-like device, called the \u201cimpeller,\u201d spinning around at the bottom to mix up everything in the container \u2014 this ensures that nutrients are evenly distributed and encourages cell growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Industrial meat production is broken in every way.”<\/p>Yossi Quint<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n According to Quint, it\u2019s the reliance on these stirred tank bioreactors that\u2019s creating a bottleneck in cultivated meat production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey just can’t get that big,\u201d he said<\/a> at ZERO, a quarterly climate tech event, in 2023. \u201cAt some point, this impeller requires so much energy that it’s terrible for the environment, but more importantly, it needs to spin so fast to create homogeneous mixing that it\u2019s going to kill the cells.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A better <\/strong>bioreactor<\/strong>: <\/strong>Ark Biotech has developed a bioreactor that uses vertical tubes and \u201cairlift technology\u201d to mix everything uniformly. To scale to larger quantities, you just add more tubes, and those are \u201creally, really cheap,\u201d according to Quint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAt scale, our bioreactor is 90% cheaper than the biggest bioreactor in the world today,\u201d he told attendees at Zero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The team has also developed an operating system, called the \u201coptimization engine,\u201d that acts like a digital twin for the physical bioreactor. It allows the user to see what\u2019s happening in it, simulate different scenarios, and then make real-time adjustments to more than 15 parameters to optimize performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking ahead: <\/strong>Quint told Freethink that Ark plans to launch an upgraded version of its bioreactor in the coming months, along with a new controller, but better bioreactors alone won\u2019t be enough to end the world\u2019s reliance on traditional sources of meat<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cultivated meat might have much of the flavor of traditional meat, but it lacks its structure, and developers are still trying to figure out the best way to replicate the texture of actual cuts of meat, like steak<\/a> or chicken breast, using cells grown in the lab. Public acceptance is another issue \u2014 some people might simply not want to make the switch to cultivated meat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, this isn\u2019t a transition that\u2019s going to happen overnight, but advances like Ark\u2019s bioreactor could help bring us closer to a future in which eating meat doesn\u2019t have to be a drain on the environment or an ethical dilemma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCultivated meat is a use case that is especially dear to me,\u201d Quint told Freethink. \u201cIndustrial meat production is broken in every way. Cultivated meat is real meat without those negative externalities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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