Future Fields, the company that gives pulp cost and economies of scale for the mass market, today unveiled its patent-pending process for using Drosophila melanogaster – the common fruit fly – to make cell growth media on a mass market scale and up to 10,000 times cheaper than that competing products.
Growth factor proteins signal cells when and how to grow, but previous generations of cell meat used fetal bovine serum (FBS) obtained from slaughterhouses or microbial-produced growth factors. Both approaches are expensive and difficult to scale for high volume products, and keep cellular meat at around $ 50 per pound, compared to the average of less than $ 6 per pound for steak in the US
?? Efficiency in single cell systems is inherently limited due to expensive cultures, growth media to aid the growth of these cells, and antibiotics to prevent contamination. ?? explains Dr. Matt Anderson-Baron, Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder of Future Field. “We got around all of these problems completely by using insects, which are self-contained bioreactors capable of expressing just about any protein or growth factor.”
Fruit flies open up cellular agriculture to the mass market
Future Field’s Drosophila Bioreactor Approach paves the way for cellular meat and other agricultural products as it offers significant advantages over other production methods including:
Mass market costs – Customized organic products that are up to 10,000 times cheaper than the competition, depending on the product
Mass market scale – Insects feed organically instead of expensive growth media and are raised in simple cages that are scaled with minimal space requirements
Species specificity – Cells for meat, dairy products, leather or other animal products of all kinds – cows, pigs, chickens, etc. – are cultivated with growth factors specific for this species
quality – Insect cells have the machinery necessary to facilitate the production of complex proteins and therefore do not affect quality like E. coli, plants or yeast systems
Sustainable cellular agriculture
A growing world population is expected to increase the need for food by 70 to 100 percent by 2050. Meanwhile, climate change and the environmental impact of industrial agriculture continue to raise serious concerns about the world’s ability to meet these needs. Cellular agriculture is one of several new approaches to producing high quality protein with less impact on land, water and other environmental resources.
“Drosophila helps us fulfill the mandate of cellular agriculture to reduce environmental impact while producing high quality protein for a growing world population.” says Jalene Anderson-Baron, COO of Future Field, who first suggested the use of fruit flies. ?? We can manage them with a sustainable diet, they convert food to body mass very efficiently, they get the water they need from their food and can be grown near production facilities, reducing the need for transportation. ??
Today’s news follows Future Fields? successful $ 2.2 million seed financing round and shipping of the company’s first product – a proprietary version of FGF2 growth factor protein – to cellular meat producers.
About future fields
Future Fields unlocks cellular agriculture by creating bespoke growth media – the most important component of cellular agriculture – that are inexpensive, scalable, and optimized for the future of food. The company was founded in 2018 by CEO Lejjy Gafour, COO Jalene Anderson-Baron and Chief Scientific Officer Matt Anderson-Baron. Future Fields is headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta and is backed by venture capitalists such as Bee Partners and Y Combinator. See FutureFields.io for more information.
Media contact
Sean Yokomizo
On behalf of Future Fields
press@futurefields.io
925.878.1200
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