An old colleague always had a strange request at noon. For health reasons, it was a vegetarian, but it was still losing the taste of the ground beef. So he would ask the chef in the cafeteria for a veggie burger cooked next to the burgers. The fat that fell above the plant substitute taste much better.
The peoples in Shipping barn They must have heard our conversation at noon. They have developed pork fat without animals. The product has just been approved by the US Department of Agriculture, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. The approval seal allows the start to sell fat to consumers.
It is the first such product to reach the market and could unlock a series of viscous alternatives with viscous meat.
“It really allows anyone, any of our partners who use our ingredient, to also start a product on the market,” Cecilia Chang, head of Mission Barns, told TechCrunch.
Scientists have been trying to cultivate meat for years. The world’s first laboratory burger hit the mouth critics’ mouths In 2013Although it costs about $ 330,000. The cost has been significantly reduced since then, but a burger made of laboratory beef still costs several times from the classic McDonald’s. Part of the problem is that muscle cells require something to grow, while most cells cultivated today grow in large liquids.
But fat is not so selective, making it easier to grow at costs that consumers can swallow. And when it comes to flavor, it packs a fist.
To grow fat, the barns of the mission first take a small sample, such as a biopsy, from a living pig. He then inserts it into a biodegradant containing a development medium. Because the fats floats, the start had to develop its own biofuels to ensure that the cells were evenly distributed in all means. If they accumulate on top, they will not have access to enough food to grow properly.
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Mission Barns’s first products are the Alternatives of Bacon, Cakeball and Sausage made using pea protein in combination with cultivated pork fat. The start also provides other companies with its fat to integrate into their own recipes. In the long run, Chang said, selling to other food manufacturers will be its main business.
The pea protein is a common ingredient among alternative meat, but Chang said the Barns recipe is different. “Because fat gives you such a great taste, you really get some of the most expensive ingredients in an alternative protein product, the artificial fragrances,” he said.
Chang also said that, perhaps incompatible, cultivated pork fat should allow healthier alternative meats. Recipes will not need so much salt to cover the flavor of pea protein and the company can modify whatever cells eat, reinforcing omega-3 fats, for example.
For future products, Barns Mission Mulling pork with a more intense taste. “You can get away with the addition of less fat, and this has the nutritional profile of a salmon fat,” Chang said. “When we talk to partners, it’s like, ‘Hell yes, sign me.’
