A: Our research began in spring 2020, so technically speaking we are not starting now. And why not earlier? I suppose we were waiting for the coming together of important key factors such as know-how, vision and financial resources. There was probably no point in starting sooner than that because only in the past two years has human knowledge advanced enough that the technology of cultivated meat production is no longer sci-fi. Currently, the technology is at the stage comparable to the existence of first mainframe computers. They were awfully expensive, complex, couldn’t do much… Couple of decades later everyone uses their own pc for a decent price, whose output is higher than that of all computers in the 50’s combined. With mobile phones the process was considerably faster. In the case of cultivated meat, it is assumed that within the next 10 years most meat we will be eating will have come from bioreactors rather than from conventional farming. 

A: First – our team is truly young and motivated. This helps to minimize stereotypical thinking and promotes originality. Second – we function slightly differently than other research teams. There is no rigid structure or hierarchy. People work on topis they are interested in and feel passionate about, everyone is a boss if they are correct. The boss is not some one grey-haired experienced scientist telling everyone else what to do. And the fact of that our team involves people from different countries also opens doors to different approaches. And third – we move forward in parallel within all areas involved with cultivated meat technology, we are not trying to solve A and only than B, unlike other teams. 

A: If we did not believe that we can achieve the cultivation without the use of animal products, we would never start it in the first place. The meaningfulness of cultivated meat is of course based on the fact that it will not involve animal products. We use FBS now mainly as a research tool for comparing the growth in our ‘’animal-free’’ media versus the natural environment. Or we use it to see if something can work that would not normally work inside an animal, but we might find use for it in production. 

A: Economically sensible production is one where there exist buyers. If the question is meant more like when will cultivated meat be sold for a price comparable to meat from conventional farms, then that depends on many factors. Whole new industry is being formed which will require a new supply chain infrastructure that is non-existent today. For example, medias and proteins used for cell cultivation are now made on a scale corresponding to laboratory experiments. In the case of industrial scale cultivated meat production a great deal more will be needed, and it is quite difficult to foresee how it will affect the price. We anticipate that the substitution of conventional meat for cultivated meat will happen within the horizon of 3 to 10 years.  

A: We do not like how the animals are treated there like things and that we are not sure what we are eating. You can feed the animal anything, they will always survive somehow. Take for example the mad cow disease. Those cows were not fed any bio farmer’s hay but leftovers from their relatives. If it were not for the disease this would continue till today. Which consumer can say they know safely what the animal they are eating was fed? 

A: Nice idea, however not feasible. If today all beef was farmed on bio farms, the area they would need for feeding would correspond to the African continent, assuming Africa would be a one large standard meadow. 

A: We are all here because hundreds of generations of our ancestors ate meat. It contains proteins necessary for our body. Even though you can replace these by a carefully chosen plant diet, it is not an easy task. Yes, a human being can survive solely on a plant diet, but it is a question of how it will affect their health and physical and mental abilities. Possibly, with time there will evolve a vegetarian version of Homo Sapiens, but we do not really believe that it will prosper better than Homo Sapiens omnivorous. We will not decide for people what they should eat, we just want to offer them an alternative. And let’s hope no one ever dictates people what to eat. 

A: We are not saying anything like that. The muscle mass is made mostly of muscle cells, fat cells and fibroblasts. Also a complex extracellular matrix which happens to contain a number of different types of collagen (0.6 % in a tissue), veins, etc. To produce a cultivated meat structure analogical with animal meat is the challenge and one of the main tasks for all companies developing cultivated meat. 

A: From a nutritional point of view this will not be a meat replacement, as is the case for plant products, but rather a full-fledged alternative. A healthier one, because the process will be controllable and controlled. We don’t want to offer a meat replacement to people, we want to replace the animals, which are suffering and living in terrible conditions in order to produce meat.