Pressure groups and investors have repeatedly called for more public investments in cultivated meat. Their appeals haven’t gone unheard.

The EU has granted €2M to Mosa Meat, the first cultivated meat start-up in Europe, and Nutreco, an animal nutrition and aquafeed producer, to advance R&D in lab meat.

The funding is part of the Recovery Assistance for Cohesion and the Territories of Europe (REACT-EU), which constitutes a bridge to the long-term recovery plan from the Coronavirus pandemic. As explained by the European Commission, the purpose of REACT EU funds are “investments in operations contributing to preparing a green, digital and resilient recovery of the economy.”

The goal of the project, which is called Feed for Meat, is to develop lower-cost and sustainable growth media. 

Culture media is widely known as the most expensive ingredient in producing cultivated meat. So far, the industry has invested a great amount of resources to find more cost-effective solutions and move away from pharma-grade products and Foetal Bovine Serum. 

In 2019, Mosa Meat announced it managed to replace FBS and lower costs of one of the major nutrients in their basal media by almost 98%. The ambitious goal of Feed for Meat is to lower costs 100x more by using feed- and food-grade (by)products from Nutreco’s supply chain. 

“We are honoured to receive this grant from the EU,” said Peter Verstrate, co-founder and COO of Mosa Meat. “We look forward to catalysing our research to reduce the costs of cell culture media. Support from the government is a great contribution to bringing cultivated beef to the European market.”

The announcement of the funding hasn't been welcomed by everyone in Brussels. A group of Italian MEPs submitted four priority question to the Commission, asking how the funding is aligned with the goals of the REACT-EU programme and what studies were conducted to support the decision.

To learn more about this project, go to the suppliers pages to get in touch with them: Mosa Meat, Nutreco.