I could be reading it wrong. The government invested 100m+ yuan into the company CellX last year so I wouldnt be surprised if it were subsidized. I can't find any up to date information of other types of cultured meat, seems pork is the cash cow right now. Comments on similar articles says the meat is only available in restaurants right now.

:some-controversy:

  • kristina [she/her]
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    2 years ago

    A lot of these figures are outdated. That article is from 2 years ago. Since this is an emerging field, not unlike how computers used to be 50k and the size of a room but now you can go buy a raspberry pi for 30 bucks and it will fit in your pocket, the prices are rapidly changing. Even in America the price for things has gone down to 10-20 dollars for a pound of chicken, but due to a lack of support from the government it isn't getting on par with traditional meat. I think its silly and reductive to act like progress in this field is impossible when the metrics show a reduction in price and a standardization of equipment year over year.

    I'd also like to point out many of these pricings are without subsidies that the agriculture industry usually gets, too.

    This article honestly just feels very contrarian. It even rags on plant-based meats and gives a tone that is pro-vegan. How can you possibly be against more vegan substitutes that will increase the number of flavors available to people as a vegan?

    • Sphere [he/him, they/them]
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      2 years ago

      Sure, but the competition is slaughterhouses, like the one I once visited that kills 10,000 pigs a day (and that's not even a very big one). You're talking about truly massive bioreactors that have to be kept squeaky clean to a degree that basically no one is capable of doing. The article doesn't rest on a few numbers but on the argument that it's not really possible to run one of those in a way that reaches a competitive cost.

      • kristina [she/her]
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        2 years ago

        ....yeah? We have massive bioreactors now that are used to produce insulin, yeast (used for food), all sorts of things. We produce a lot of pills and medications via this method. And they have to be sterile. The average American takes something like 2-4 pills a day. That is somewhere around .5-1.2 billion pills for each day produced via this method. Science is a gargantuan undertaking but I feel like you are underestimating what we're capable of in order to be contrarian.

        • Sphere [he/him, they/them]
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          2 years ago

          It doesn't appear that you read the article I posted. So here's a quote:

          In one key way, though, the report’s authors appear to admit defeat: If the goal is to create a new generation of wildly profitable cultured meat companies, the economics of building full-scale facilities may never pan out.

          “The requirements for return on investment need to be set much lower than common practice in commercially motivated investments,” the authors write. In other words, the entities investing in this nascent industry’s growth should have very modest expectations about profit.

          Paying off a $450 million facility in an investor-friendly term of four years, GFI’s analysts found, would mean adding $11.25 per kilogram to the cost of cultured meat. But at a repayment term of 30 years, the proposed facility could reduce its capital expenditure cost to about $1.50 per kilo of meat produced—more than a seven-fold reduction, and one that is essential if price parity is ever going to be realized.

          The problem is that traditional investors are unlikely to relax their repayment terms so dramatically: They’re in it for the money. The GFI report points out that investors concerned with social causes might be more patient; others, aware of potentially huge payouts down the road, may prove to be more flexible. If investor altruism proves to be in short supply, GFI makes clear that the remaining option is for “government bodies” and “non-profit funders” to shoulder the burden. This can be read as a concession: Cultured meat may never reach price parity on its own terms. It will likely need public or philanthropic support to be competitive.

          To be fair, the traditional meat industry already benefits from enormous direct and indirect government subsidies. Still, critics say that GFI may still be significantly underestimating the cost of building and outfitting large-scale cultured meat facilities. Depending on who you listen to, the end result may be a bill that no reasonable investor is willing to foot.

          Think of it this way: At a projected $450 million, GFI’s hypothetical facility doesn’t come cheap. But that target is only a rough estimate, and one that would quickly become unrealistic if pharmaceutical-grade practices are used. The GFI report gets around this by assuming that future cultured meat plants will be able to be built to cheaper specifications.

          “A key difference in the CE Delft study is that everything was assumed to be food-grade,” Swartz said. That distinction, of whether facilities will be able to operate at food- or pharma-grade specs, will perhaps more than anything determine the future viability of cultivated meat.

          The Open Philanthropy report assumes the opposite: that cultivated meat production will need to take place in aseptic “clean rooms” where virtually no contamination exists. For his cost accounting, Humbird projected the need for a Class 8 clean room—an enclosed space where piped-in, purified oxygen blows away threatening particles as masked, hooded workers come in and out, likely through an airlock or sterile gowning room. To meet international standards for airborne particulate matter, the air inside would be replaced at a rate of 10 to 25 times an hour, compared to 2 to 4 times in a conventional building. The area where the cell lines are maintained and seeded would need a Class 6 clean room, an even more intensive specification that runs with an air replacement rate of 90 to 180 times per hour.

          The simple reason: In cell culture, sterility is paramount. Animal cells “grow so slowly that if we get any bacteria in a culture—well, then we’ve just got a bacteria culture,” Humbird said. “Bacteria grow every 20 minutes, and the animal cells are stuck at 24 hours. You’re going to crush the culture in hours with a contamination event.”

          Viruses also present a unique problem. Because cultured animal cells are alive, they can get infected just the way living animals can.

          “There are documented cases of, basically, operators getting the culture sick,” Humbird said. “Not even because the operator themselves had a cold. But there was a virus particle on a glove. Or not cleaned out of a line. The culture has no immune system. If there’s virus particles in there that can infect the cells, they will. And generally, the cells just die, and then there’s no product anymore. You just dump it.”

          If even a single speck of bacteria can spoil batches and halt production, clean rooms may turn out to be a basic, necessary precondition. It may not matter if governments end up allowing cultured meat facilities to produce at food-grade specs, critics say—cells are so intensely vulnerable that they’ll likely need protection to survive.

          “We’re saying, guys, it has to be pharmaceutical-grade because the process is going to demand it,” Wood told me. “It’s not whether someone will allow you [to run at food-grade specs.] It’s just the fact you can’t physically do it.”

          Of course, companies could try. But that might be a risky strategy, said Neil Renninger, a chemical engineer who has spent a lot of time around the kind of equipment required for cell culture. Today, he is on the board of Ripple Foods, a dairy alternatives company that he co-founded. Before that, for years, he ran Amyris, a biotechnology company that uses fermentation to produce rare molecules like squalene—an ingredient used in a range of products from cosmetics to cancer therapeutics, but is traditionally sourced unsustainably from shark liver oil.

          “Contamination was an issue” at Amyris, he said. “You’re getting down to the level of making sure that individual welds are perfect. Poor welds create little pits in the piping, and bacteria can hide out in those pits, and absolutely ruin fermentation runs.”

          If it’s not clear where the breach is, things can get worse quickly. Renninger said biotech companies sometimes need to take an entire plant apart, scrub everything, and put it all back together again to mitigate an issue—a process that can be necessitated by one tiny eddy in a single piece of pipe welding, which can be “incredibly costly” in terms of labor and lost productivity.

          • kristina [she/her]
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            2 years ago

            Its a long ass article, to be fair, but I did see it a long time ago when it was first posted.

            I'd like to make a point that the website is funded by a (likely) billionaire finance ghoul named Donald SUSSMAN (I can't fucking make this up) who got his fortune by speculating on Cuban agricultural prices during the revolution.

            The site itself for the article is defunct and the author cannot update the article anymore for new data. Whether or not a batch fails or not is irrelevant, pigs and crops die all the time, it matters what the rate of failure is. I also find it amusing that profit is a central notion to this excerpt, outside of us being socialists. Agriculture isn't exactly profitable, it is heavily subsidized and would have brutal shocks, shortages, and deficits otherwise. But we need it to survive, so... :shrug-outta-hecks:

            If you listen to some interviews with the author and his source, the source actually talks a lot about how the fracturing of the industry into a lot of companies with low IP sharing plus a poor regulatory environment is hindering development. Thats less of an issue in China due to how IP and regulation is there. The reporter gives a kinda liberal spiel about how the industry hasn't matured and doesn't deserve government funding, when in reality R&D is one of the most important things the government does. They both frame the idea in terms of profit but again, that completely misses the point. Agriculture isn't profitable.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-yZpFvzvAc This was nearly a year ago but its more of an update

            • Sphere [he/him, they/them]
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              2 years ago

              Yeah I saw that page. In fairness the Cuban agriculture thing was how he got his very first success, making a few grand or something on $300; he wasn't exactly a baron of industry at the time. I didn't check into the guy's current assets, as he's a hedge fund guy now (so it could be almost anything, really). But yeah, the source is potentially suspect, to be sure.

              That said, I am not going to watch a 1 hour video on this subject. If there's a text source I can read, I will look at that, but I frankly fucking hate video sources of information (this is just a weird curmudgeonly quirk of mine; nothing to do with you or this discussion). If there is a section of the video specifically relevant to the issue of bioreactor sterility, I'll watch up to say 10 or 15 minutes of it (but I won't like it lol).

              And yeah, agriculture gets subsidies and is cut breaks and whatnot, but it can't realistically be subsidized to the tune of several hundred percent of the cost of the product, even in a socialist system, so major production issues are a real concern, which is the whole point I've been driving at. If we need to replace animal-produced meat in the diets of ordinary people, it needs to be cost-effective, which means lab-grown meat has to compete with plant-based alternatives as well. (The goal here, after all, is to get to a point where animal-produced meat can be banned without massively negative social and political effects.)

              Believe me, though, if the issues identified can be addressed, I'll be more excited about it than basically anyone else, seeing as there are a lot of really cool biological systems that could be put to work in massive, cheaply sterile bioreactors, and to do much more interesting stuff than growing meat.

              • kristina [she/her]
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                2 years ago

                It definitely isn't several hundred percent? Its estimated that a pound of hamburger meat is 30 USD without subsidies. Its about 5.19 right now near me. So the subsidy removes about 75% of the cost. If subsidies and regulations for cultured meat were in line with agriculture, cultured meat would be somewhat competitive, and that is what we are starting to see in China.

                • Sphere [he/him, they/them]
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                  2 years ago

                  I meant several hundred percent of the cost to the consumer, by which math that subsidy is 478% of the cost. Which means I'm both totally wrong about how much of a subsidy is manageable, lol, and also appalled at how much fucking money is being wasted so guys like that asshole (the one whose tweet started this whole conversation) can have their BEEF :frothingfash:

                  • kristina [she/her]
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                    2 years ago

                    Yeah its pretty absurd how much beef is subsidized. But hey at least soy is heavily subsidized... to feed the cows! But you get some of those benefits too! :soy-chill:

                    • Sphere [he/him, they/them]
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                      2 years ago

                      It would be a lie for me to say that :im-vegan: but that figure is nonetheless appalling.

                      • kristina [she/her]
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                        2 years ago

                        Yeah I'm a pseudovegan by convenience except on days we go out to eat at a restaurant which is maybe like once every 2 months or something. I fucking love eating fish. I will never stop eating fish. I also eat grilled locusts cause theyre the shrimp of the land. Sometimes the bf makes me a fancy meal or something and its usually fish too I guess.

                        I used to drink a ton of milk cause it was cheaper and more convenient than vegan shakes (which also tasted awful at the time). Vegan shakes came a long way, taste good, and are cheaper than milk (in the long run, if you buy in bulk and store it), nutritionally complete, and have decent protein. I got really really bad stress issues so I can't make food easily, has to be in a shake.

                        • Sphere [he/him, they/them]
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                          2 years ago

                          Interesting. What shake brands do you recommend? Milk is a huge component of my diet, so I would welcome a replacement (those plant milks all have too little protein to work for me).

                          • kristina [she/her]
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                            2 years ago

                            Theres a lot of brands, I recommend trying them all out before buying in bulk. Each person will have a different taste. I like Soylent (lmao) the most but Huel is good too. Orgain tasted a little weird to me. So did Katefarms. Most are reasonably priced in bulk.

                            • Sphere [he/him, they/them]
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                              2 years ago

                              Cool, thanks! I'll give those all a try. (Side note: how in the hell did those guys get away with naming it "soylent"? Did they seriously not realize what they were referencing? Did no one else? Like, wtf?)

                              • kristina [she/her]
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                                2 years ago

                                Hell of a piece of furniture, those ones :shrug-outta-hecks:

                                • Sphere [he/him, they/them]
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                                  2 years ago

                                  I was like 13 or something when I watched that movie and that term was a truly astonishing level of (purely casual) misogyny for me. I still don't think I've seen anything that tops that.

                                  • kristina [she/her]
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                                    2 years ago

                                    me n the bf say that to each other whenever we notice one of us is lookin fine af that day

                                    it was pretty funny to me how callous it was

      • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
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        2 years ago

        Sure, but the competition is slaughterhouses, like the one I once visited that kills 10,000 pigs a day

        this is true but there is also the labor and costs that go into rearing the pig, growing the food to feed the pig, all the logistics involved

        much of which in America is heavily subsidised