More than ten years have passed since Mark Post watched a food critic chew the priciest hamburger ever served in a London studio with lights shining and cameras rolling. In many parts of Europe, the patty was more expensive than a small apartment. Honest but courteous, the critic said it needed salt. That was in 2013. Now that I’m watching the video, it has an odd innocence to it, the kind of optimism you only experience before reality starts billing you.
Back then, the promise was clear and almost cinematic. meat that hasn’t been killed. protein devoid of pasture. A sesame bun with a climate change solution. Investors took a strong stance. Money was flowing into cultivated meat startups at a rate that suggested the future was half-built by the early 2020s. It wasn’t. It’s still not.
| Lab-Grown Meat Industry — Snapshot | Details |
|---|---|
| First lab-grown burger unveiled | August 2013, London |
| Original cost of that first burger | £215,000 (around $330,000) |
| Scientist behind it | Mark Post, Maastricht University, Netherlands |
| Total venture capital raised across the sector | Over $1.6 billion globally |
| Approximate number of active startups | Around 200 worldwide |
| Current production cost (industry estimate) | Roughly $10,000 per pound |
| Projected target cost (Good Food Institute, 9-year horizon) | About $2.50 per pound |
| Annual traditional meat output for comparison | More than 100 billion pounds |
| Notable closures and layoffs (2023–2024) | New Age Eats, SCiFi Foods, Aleph Farms (30% staff cut), Upside Foods (paused Chicago plant) |
| Countries where cultivated meat is currently sold | Singapore and the United States (limited) |
| Common availability | One restaurant, one country, often only on Thursdays |
There are still about 200 startups working on it today, and the numbers have not been favorable. Depending on whose spreadsheet you trust, the cost of producing a pound of cultivated meat is reportedly close to $10,000. Within nine years, the amount could drop to about $2.50 per pound, according to the Good Food Institute, which supports the industry. A 4,000-fold reduction would be necessary for that. It is feasible. Additionally, seasoned biotech veterans raise an eyebrow at this kind of leap.
Drug companies have been cultivating animal cells in bioreactors for decades, as Paul Wood, a former Pfizer Animal Health executive with a PhD in immunology, has pointed out for years. He is aware of the expenses. He is aware of the dangers of contamination, the costs associated with media, and the sluggish doubling times of mammalian cells. It’s not science fiction technology. It’s simply expensive and stubbornly real. Speaking with people in this field gives me the impression that the industry mistook lab demonstrations for industrial readiness.
Silently, the closures have begun to pile up. Early in 2023, New Age Eats closed. In June 2024, SCiFi Foods folded after running out of runway. Nearly one-third of Aleph Farms’ employees were laid off in Israel. Construction on a significant facility in the Chicago area was put on hold by Upside Foods, once the industry’s poster child. Paul Shapiro of Better Meat, the author of the book Clean Meat, now refers to the prospect of cultivated meat appearing on big-box store shelves this decade as “unrealistic.” For someone who used to be among the believers, that is a significant change in tone.
The dish is small, the line is short, and the menu changes every day outside one of the few eateries in Singapore that serve the product. It is difficult to ignore how dissimilar that is from the initial idea of feeding the world. As a long-term objective, the industry discusses producing 30 million pounds a year. Over 100 billion pounds of meat are produced annually by traditional meat producers. There is no rounding error in the gap. It’s a canyon.
A more subdued query also looms over all of this. Will people genuinely want it, even if the science is successful? After years of expansion, plant-based meat now makes up about 1% of the total volume of meat consumed. Habits change gradually. Even more slowly, culture is changing. Investors appear to think that advances in cell density, more affordable growth media, and improved bioreactor design will eventually solve the cost issue. Perhaps they will. Perhaps people in 2013 simply didn’t believe the timeline.
In the lengthy history of food technology, it is still unclear if cultivated meat will become a legitimate industry or a cautionary footnote. The lab burger was meant to be the beginning of something. After ten years, it seems more like a pause. The money is tighter, the hype has subsided, and the science is still taking its time.
