We’ve been speaking about lab-grown meat for nearly a decade now, with several companies aiming to bring cultured meat to market soon. The advantages are obvious – it feels and tastes like meat from a slaughtered animals, without need to slaughter animals or the environmental impact of farming those animals. Now, slaughter-free cuts of impala, springbok and wildebeest could soon be on the menu thanks to innovative South African companies.
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The first lab-grown burger was consumed in London in 2013, with one caveat – it cost about $300,000 to create. Now, the technology is advancing quickly and it is expected to hit your supermarkets within the next couple of years.
The reason it tastes like real meat is, well, because it IS real meat. It is grown in a lab from stem cells harvested from said animals, and it’s nearly ready to come to market in an affordable form.
Spearheading this movement in South Africa is the Mogale Meat Co., which has already produced Africa’s first cell-based chicken. The company believes it can have its first product ready by the end of this year, with commercial production following within the next three years. The company is targeting “the average meat consumer” who’s increasingly opting for free-range or organic products, but isn’t attracted to plant-based alternatives, said CEO Paul Bartels, a wildlife veterinarian who used his life savings to start the firm in 2020.
In Cape Town, Mzanzi Meat Co. has already unveiled Africa’s first cultivated beef in April 2022, and believes it can scale production to be ready for mass-market by 2023. Co-founder Brett Thompson said he aims to supply a nationwide burger franchise by the end of this year or early 2023. “At the moment we can only produce enough to make a single burger,” he said. “We need to get to a quantity where we can produce thousands of kilograms before we can service a restaurant.”
