Continuing our Personal Project Spotlight series, today, we are spotlighting high school student Lia, who chose the topic of the economic viability of the cultivated or “lab-grown” meat industry for her Personal Project. She explored this by creating a broker’s report, which theoretically advises investors about an industry through a financial summary. This included a general industry outlook, as well as future predictions for the industry, with insights into 17 startups in the field.
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Why did you choose this project?
The lab-grown meat industry is a new industry which peaked around 2020 and is currently struggling, so I wanted to take an economic perspective on it. I built upon my existing interest in the industry and existing knowledge of the scientific and technical aspects.
I wanted to understand why cultivated meat was not yet on our plates, as it seemed to tick all the boxes, i.e. taste, cost, health, environmental impact, and ethics. As the industry is highly startup-dominated, I was struck to hear that 90% of innovative startups fail. So, I looked into examples of failed startups from the cultivated meat industry and was surprised to see a lot of high-potential ideas failing. This led me to my overarching question: what determines the 10% of startups which will succeed in this industry?
How did your project develop through meetings and interviews with companies?
Meeting with companies changed my approach a lot. The companies I interviewed were:
- Umami Bioworks: Singaporean cultivated seafood company building the production platform behind scalable cell-grown fish.
- Ever After Foods: Israeli cultivated meat infrastructure company focused on bioreactors and scalable manufacturing systems.
- Meatly: British cultivated meat pet food company.
Not only did I use my organisational and reflective skills in the meetings, but I also tailored my questions to the audience, learned the financial topics discussed in the meetings, and consulted recent news and industry developments to make my questions specific, unique, and interesting. My efforts also resulted in an invitation to tour their lab and visit their company later in the year!
Overall, it was a good learning experience on how to adapt to new environments, prepare for professional settings and develop my communication skills.
What will the industry look like in 10 years time?
It is unlikely to take over the conventional meat industry, at least not for the next 10 years. Ninety per cent will fail, not due to poor business models or ideas but lack of ”runway” (how much time a start-up has before it runs out of money). Cultivated meat may peak when there is a real shortage of meat, as the urgency could force the industry to grow. Currently, a lot of people in the industry are saying that this is the ‘valley of death’ (the lowest point of a startup before rapid growth), although I am not certain of this.
At this stage, the focus is not necessarily on taste or texture, but rather on creating a product, getting a patent, investment and approval.
In my report, I also talked about the white spaces (untapped market opportunities) in the industry. These include research and development, and new company opportunities where the industry is lacking innovation. This downstream process was one of these ‘white spaces’.
Overall, my predictions for 10 years’ time are that there will be more hybrid products, e.g. vegetarian meat and cultivated or cultivated and conventional, etc. I also predict that one company will have a monopoly, and the rest will have either been acquired or reached bankruptcy.
Which cultivated meat companies will succeed?
I predict that pet food companies have the potential to succeed due to a variety of reasons:
- Texture matters less
- People invest a lot of money into their pets (and care what they eat)
- Pet owners are usually animal lovers (appealing to the ethics of cultivated meat)
- Significantly easier to gain regulatory approval
What did you most enjoy about the project?
I enjoyed the complete freedom to choose a topic and product. I also enjoyed learning about the real-world context and the wider meaning of why so many startups fail and what defines those that succeed. Understanding the macro and micro-economic components of an industry and specific companies in the industry, and the difference between science in theory and in practice, was also a highlight for me.
Overall, it was a great opportunity to learn self-management as I had independence in every aspect of the project from topic choice to time organisation.
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Thank you, Lia, for sharing your curiosity with us!
