BCBusiness

January/February 2022 – The Most Resilient Cities

With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.

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ON THE RADAR ( the informer ) TANYA GOEHRING O ld MacDonald had a farm. New MacDonald has a laboratory, an extruder, a 3D beef printer and the backing of venture capital. A B.C.-based investment firm called Cult Food Science is investing in companies developing cultured meat al- ternatives. Meanwhile, a local project to create a plant-based replica of Wagyu beef has at- tracted $7.6 million in funding from Protein Industries Canada ( PIC)—one of the country's five Innovation Superclusters—and a group of participating com- panies. If consumers are ready, the lines between farm, ranch and laboratory could soon be erased. And that old vegetarian rallying cry, "Meat is murder," will no longer be an open-and- shut case. Founded by CEO Dorian Banks, Cult (short for "cul- tured") has invested in eight different cultured meat proj- ects as well as in MeliBio, a producer of cultured honey. "It's allowing retail investors in Canada to have a 'steak' in the game," says Cult adviser Rob Harris. "Pun intended." Cultured meat—obtained not by slaughtering animals but by growing organic material from cell cultures—is slowly moving closer to store shelves. Already, a Singapore restau- rant called 1880 has offered cultured chicken on a tasting menu (along with waffles cre- ated via traditional waffle-iron technology). Scientists at Osaka University have succeeded in 3D-printing Wagyu beef, start- ing with cultured cells taken from beef cattle. During a recent press conference at UBC, Wa- mame Foods, a subsidiary of Burnaby's Top Tier Foods, announced its own planned Wagyu beef product, this one entirely plant-based. Wamame's Wagyu will use pro- tein isolates from canola and peas processed at Manitoba- headquartered Merit Function- al Foods—a project also backed by nonprofit PIC—and will feature flavour enhancements Raising the Steaks B.C. entrepreneurs and investors want a cut of the potentially huge market for plant-based and lab-grown meat. Could they end up making a killing? by Steve Burgess F O OD JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022 BCBUSINESS 17 FAUX MEAT, REAL PROFITS Consumers have 4 principle-based reasons to buy plant-based meat, UBS notes: ENVIRONMENTAL Red meat and dairy production account for an estimated 48% of greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. food supply chain RESOURCE SCARCITY 25% of all land was used for animal husbandry in 2017 ANIMAL WELFARE Each year, some 72 billion animals are slaughtered for food HEALTH Eating a mostly plant-based diet reduces your heart failure risk by 42% US$51 billion Potential value of the global plant-based meat market by 2025, according to Swiss bank UBS— 3x its size in 2019 Share of total addressable market 2.5% SOURCES: UBS, JOHNS HOPKINS CENTER FOR A LIVABLE FUTURE, FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS, AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION, FOODS 40% Share of respondents in a recent survey of U.S. and U.K. consumers who said they would likely or very likely try cell- cultured meat HOLY COW Wamame Foods boss Blair Bullus with his compa- ny's plant-based Wagyu beef

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