Well, in recent weeks here on Bloomberg Business a week, we've talked about plant based food I mean we're talking about like impossible foods, and beyond meat and the like, we've talked about fungi based foods as well. But what about meat that's grown directly from animal cells, so chicken and beef that tastes like chicken and beef, but it's not actually from animals that have been killed. There's a company working on that. It's called Upside Foods. Amy Chen
is joining us. She's chief operating officer of the company. She joins us after this afternoon from San Francisco. Earlier this year, the company did raise a huge, seriously funding round four hundred million bucks soft bank Tyson Foods, Bill Gates Whole Foods among the organizations and people that invested in it. Amy, it's good to have you with us. How are you. I'm doing great, Thanks so much, and happy Monday from California. Yeah, happy happy Monday. Right back
at you. Okay, how do you guys do this? So it's exactly as you described actually, so we take really animals, take themselves. From those animals, we essentially select the ones that are going to taste the best and grow the best UM, and then we feed them something that we call self feed or media UM. It's essentially the same kind of nutrients that they would normally get inside of
an animal's body. We just do it in a what we call a cultivator, which is like a stainless steel tank that you might see in a brewery or in a yogurt factory. We allow them to grow, continue feeding them UM, and then ultimately are able to harvest meat that is as close to the real thing as you can possibly get because it's grown from real animal self amy. The timing of this segment is perfect because Tim and
I have been sent in here since too. We're both starving, so so we're acent on board with whatever you're you're growing there. But I'm curious, you know, when will we be able to see this on the market. I understand it has to get regulatory approval first, right, That's exactly right, UM, and so we are currently pending regulatory approval UM. But as soon as it happens, we will be excited to
start being able to share it more broadly with consumers. UM. And on the point of being hungry, I'll share that because it's noontime here. But one of the things that really convinced me about the potential and the promise of cultivated meat was actually the taste of it um growing up in the food world, taste of king and Queen um and everything in between um sort of table stakes. And so when I first had my bite of cultivated meat, I can tell you that's the moment when I really believe.
And when you think about plant based and a lot of these other things that require people to make changes in their habits. I'm from Texas, UM and I love my meat um, and so I have always just wanted to be able to think about a way to change the world without requiring people to really change their habits. And I think does this in a really compelling way. So, Amy, what, okay, if you were to be able to buy this in this store when you looked at the ingredients, but on
the box, what would it say? And and also are their antibiotics? Are their their chemicals in it? Etcetera. Now, one of the things that's amazing is that it doesn't have antibiotics or hormones or some of the things that you think about with respect to conventional meat UM. And so We're still working on exactly what the label would say, but it was really say chickens grown from animal bells
are cultivated from high quality animal cells. And there's a whole range of products that you can imagine, everything from a chicken breast or a chicken filet through to a sausage or a hot dog. Different products of conventional meat would have different labels and so you'd see that same
kind of thing reflected here. But ultimately the promise is that the real cells can be the meat that we all love, you know, Amy, I'm wondering if there's the potential down the roads even sort of improve on Mother nature, you know, and make a steak with less cholesterol, or chicken that I don't know comes pre flavored with buffalo sauce or something like that. But you're you're just playing
with God there, alright. But I'm curious, is there, Yes, there is there the potential to actually enhance foods and make them even healthier and more nutritious than than what we're used to. Long term, absolutely, um, I think that's something on our roadmap in the horizon. I think in the near term we're focused on delivering amazing, delicious meat Um, that is safe enough equality and that fits into people's diets and into their habits in a way that makes
a lot of sense. But absolutely longer term, I mean exactly what you say. You could have a steak with the atritional profile of salmons, UM or anything else that you could imagine in terms of allergies or other issues that are currently part of the conventional meat system. Well. Amy, speaking of the conventional meat system, a lot of people who are vegetarians they don't they don't eat meat, you know, for a few reasons, and among those reasons include treatment
of animals or they're just against killing animals for food. UM, what is this type of thing vegetarian friendly? You know, it's a great question. UM. I would say absolutely, but it probably depends on what kind of vegetarians are UM. We have a company that is a mix of passionate meat eaters UM and carnivores and folks that are passionate vegans and vegetarians. And what we've generally found is that people who are vegetarian or vegan for ethical reasons or
environmental reasons, UM will embrace cultivated meat. Folks who are maybe vegetarian or vegan for religious reasons or other ones may want to take a second look. I was going to say, the the environmental footprint of cultivated meat sounds like it must be way less than the farm grown version. Is that is that safe? Is that a selling point
of this product? Absolutely? I think one of the pieces when you think about what's happening in the future is people predict that demand for meat is going to almost double by UM. And when you think about the amount of land and water, it's about a third that's currently used for agriculture, you know, one fifth, one six of all greenhouse gasses UM. The world simply cannot sustain the kind of demand increases that we're expecting on meat UM.
And so one of the things that's really exciting about cultivated meat is because it happens in a controlled environment similar to a manufacturing plant UM, it had the potential to have a substantially lower footprint UM. There have been third party academic studies that have suggested it could be as much as a nine reduction relative to be For example, wait, Amy, before we let you go, we only have like fifteen seconds. How does it taste? Absolutely? Delay, It tastes just like chicken.
Right there, we go just like a joke, right, Yeah, it's true the world of time. Amy Chen is the CEO of Upside of Foods. They're working on lab grown meat. Perhaps we'll be able to buy it in the stores sometime soon.