This portrait of CEO and co-founder Uma Valeti will soon be framed and added to the Wall of Heroes in our exec conference room.

Excerpts from Nov 2017 issue (full story): “no one has come close to making cultured meat anywhere near as delicious or as affordable as the real thing. But sometime in the next few years, someone will succeed in doing just that, tapping into a global market that’s already worth trillions of dollars and expected to double in size in the next three decades. Despite a bevy of well-funded competitors, no one is better positioned than Memphis Meats to get there first.”

“This Cardiologist Is Betting That His Lab-Grown Meat Startup Can Solve the Global Food Crisis. The future of your entrée is quietly growing in Memphis Meats’ lab.”

“The idea of a dish full of duck mince suddenly beginning to twitch and squirm makes me shake my head. What’s making duck bits move if not a brain and nerves? Schulze is used to this reaction. “For the past 12,000 years, we’ve assumed that when I say the word ‘meat,’ you think ‘animal,’ ” he says. “Those two ideas are concatenated. We’ve had to decouple them.””

3 responses to “A World Without Slaughter — Memphis Meats’ awesome cover story in Inc. Magazine.”

  1. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    The article mentions our enthusiastic co-investors “Virgin founder Richard Branson, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and former GE CEO Jack Welch” and while I was listening to my favorite podcast, the Tim Ferriss show, I was delighted to hear Tim ask Sir Richard about Memphis Meats at Minute 56:30 of tim.blog/2017/10/09/richard-branson/

    “The rainforests are rapidly disappearing because of our demand for beef.” — Branson

    I remember this well from high school debate, where McDonalds and Burger King hit on the brilliant marketing of “American Grade Beef” for their products in the 80’s. Few knew it came from South America, and has caused the vast majority of deforestation in the Amazon. After a few years of cattle grazing on the deforested land, the soil is ruined, and they slash and burn a new plot. As Americans entered the middle class, their demand for meat skyrocketed. This already happened for America/Amazon. It is just beginning for China.

    Reply
  2. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    And now, the final investor has been revealed: Tyson.

    Manufacturing Meat without the animals. Congrats to Memphis Meats on building quite the industry consortium, with the two of largest meat customers in America as investors — Tyson and Cargill.

    We knew of their keen interest when we led the Series A, but the full syndicate announcement came today. From Forbes:

    “For the first time, we’re replacing meat with meat – not a meat alternative. That gets Tyson and Cargill enormously excited because they’re in the meat business. There’s the potential to transform feeding the world as we know it,” says Valeti​ (founder and CEO). He first thought about growing meat without animals after his cardiology fellowship at Mayo Clinic in 2005 where he observed a clinical trial that successfully rebuilt damaged heart tissue with stem cells.

    Memphis Meats is trying to figure out a way to increase protein production globally to meet demand from 10 billion global citizens by 2050 without exacerbating limited resources for farmland and livestock. Valeti estimates demand for meat will double in the next 30 years.

    “If disruptions take place in the way that food is going to be developed or delivered in protein, in particular, Tyson Foods is going to be there,” Justin Whitmore, head of Tyson Ventures, told Forbes.

    A meat giant like Tyson, which sells about $30 billion a year of beef, poultry and pork, can help advise Memphis Meats on how to scale up. “We want to work with them to scale. Cost is the main focus for us,” Memphis Meats CEO and cofounder Uma Valeti told Forbes. “At the end point, it will be significantly cheaper than conventional meat.” Agribusiness conglomerate Cargill, the second-largest beef producer in the world, also invested in Memphis Meats

    Reply
  3. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Here’s WIRED’s list of the market efficiency advantages of manufacturing meat at the cellular level — without the animals — like Memphis Meats:

    1. Supercharged timesaver: No pregnancy, no birth, no raising, no slaughter
    2. Solving the carcass balancing problem (co-production within species)
    3. Adapting swiftly to shifting demand across species

    From the meat buyers’ perspective I think they should add:

    4. Diversifying the supply chain & removing systemic risk (e.g., avian flu, mad cow, swine fever) endemic to full-animal manufacturing.

    They conclude: “The potential flexibility of plant- and cell-based meat producers to switch from one product to another within a species category (from loin to spare rib) or between species much more fluidly and inexpensively than conventional meat producers translates to substantial market advantages. Add to this a shorter production cycle that facilitates real-time response to demand… While the planet arguably benefits the most from these meats’ higher production efficiencies, the market efficiency gains will be hugely beneficial for the bottom line.”

    And no methane!

    Reply

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