Former Director of Cultured Meat at JUST Foods Started a New Company Pioneering Slaughter-Free Meat

Director of cellular agriculture (aka lab-cultured meat) at JUST, Inc., Eitan Fischer, has stepped down from his position and started his own company, Mission Barns Inc. JUST was formerly called Hampton Creek and is best known for their plant-based mayos and spreads. Fischer stated he will reveal details about the new company in the next few weeks.

Jacy Reese, founder of the Sentience Institute think-tank, told Gizmodo that the goal of Fischer’s new company is to speed up the advancement of cultured meat and get it to consumers as soon as possible. “Many of the leaders of the clean meat industry are focused on making clean meat available and growing market share as quickly as possible … There’s tons of room for more companies in the space, so this will inevitably mean some leaders leave larger companies to start new ones.”

The industry has made some incredible advancements since its start when the first lab-cultured burger made by Mosa Meat cost $375,000 to make. The same product is now down to just $30 a pound. Investors like Bill Gates and Richard Branson, as well as Big Meat leaders Cargill and Tyson, have invested in clean meat after recognizing that it will likely be in high demand in the near future.

With the world’s booming population exponentially growing and expected to reach a whopping 9.8 billion by 2050, our current broken food system ruled by Big Meat and Dairy will not be able to feed the growing population. Luckily, forward-thinking minds have been preparing for alternatives that are sustainable and able to feed the entire world. This has led to the rapidly expanding field of lab-cultured meat alternatives, commonly referred to as “clean” meat. Clean meat is said to mimic actual meat in all ways (texture, taste, etc.) because it is created from real animal cells, but it does not have the massive carbon footprint that regular meat production has.

We look forward to hearing more from Mission Barns as their work develops. If we can stamp out factory farming and replace our current food system with lab-cultured alternatives, that would certainly be a win in our book!

To learn more about the environmental impact of our food choices and how plant-based and lab-cultured meat can provide a viable solution, check out the Eat For The Planet book! 

Image Source: Brent Hofacker/Shutterstock