Lab-Grown Meat – Not Yet On The Menu

It is now eight years since the first lab-grown burger was unveiled by a team of scientists at Maastricht University, but since then the path to market has been slow. Lab-grown meat has attracted significant investment and there appears to be a large, untapped customer base waiting for products to hit the shelves. Could patents be playing a part in the delay, as has been asserted by some parts of the media?

The worldwide market value of substitute meat products was estimated to be $11 billion in 2019, and is expect to grow to $35 billion by 2027. Consumer habits are changing rapidly: in the UK increasing numbers of people are adopting vegetarian, pescatarian or vegan diets, with one survey recording the number of vegans increasing by 40% to a record 1.5 million people in 2020. Plant-based alternatives to meat such as the Beyond Burger and the Impossible Burger have reached the mass market.