SCiFi Foods’ CRISPR Cultivated Beef Meets Price Parity
SCiFi Foods is set on creating the next lightbulb. It’s the seemingly simple innovations that really revolutionize our future. The thing about these simple innovations is … they are only simple after they’ve been invented. With that in mind, SCiFi Foods is tackling the daunting task of cruelty-free, sustainable, cultivated meat.
The company’s goals include replicating the same taste, texture, and nutrition as conventional meat without the cost to the planet or the unsustainable practices of raising and farming beef. With their recent breakthrough, their cell-based beef is now 1000 times cheaper to produce.
The California-based startup has recently announced they have achieved price parity with beef using their proprietary cultivated meat food-tech. This comes as the company’s first R&D announcement, and is also a first for the world. SCiFi Foods is officially the first to produce edible cultivated beef cell lines grown in a single-cell suspension.
“We’ve known from day one that by opting to work on cultivated beef, we were choosing a much bigger challenge in terms of the science and technology required,” SCiFi Foods CEO and co-founder Joshua March said in a statement. “However, beef is the ultimate prize—with both the biggest market demand and the biggest climate impact. This breakthrough illustrates the power of our bioengineering strategy, and is a huge testament to our team and the platform they’ve built.”
Their proprietary beef cultivating process uses CRISPR technology. CRISPR began as a controversial technology adapted from a genome editing system that bacteria use for immunity. By capturing and inserting small pieces of DNA from the attacking virus into their own DNA, bacteria create what’s called CRISPR arrays. But for all of its potential, the tech has also brought controversy as studies have found that altering the DNA of embryos or eggs and sperm could cause mutations that create other health threats.
SCiFi Foods has done extensive testing and determined the use of CRISPR is unlikely to pose risks to humans who consume CRISPR-edited cultivated beef. The technology also allows for price parity, with a good chance that cultivated beef prices will drop even further.
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