“The animal agriculture industry is not long for this world”

[Yale]

B.O.L.L.O.C.K.S

Sweetbread?

 

[Henarar]

Oh yes that is most probably correct. But consider what happens to farm animal rearing economics if even 15% have of sales are to alternatives while considering that beef and sheep production in the UK are on average only marginally viable in eight years out of ten even without losing that much market share. It would at that point be a very slippery slop indeed to being completely unviable, at least in the UK but probably everywhere.
Before you would know what hit you, only a precariously small niche market would remain.

it is them making the slippery slop

 

[Bald Rick]

That's not true because these posts are based on quotes out there in the popular public media and 'respected' news sources. This particular venture, for instance, is heavily financed and supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. What you are seeing and debating is the future and if you bury your head in the sand as to what is happening around you and where the money is going and how the public are being educated and primed, then you will be suffocated and buried by future events.

What you are in fact witnessing just now is THE NEXT BIG THING and its happening right in front of your eyes, powered by big money, wokeness and climate change [religious type] fear.

Only if they can make their gloop / frankenfood cheap enough.
There appear to be massive problems with scaling up as the process is not something that can be easily replicated.
The other issues revolve around contamination, waste and public uptake.

Unless and until they can produce their gloop at well under the price per Kg of animal meat, it will not work and investors will pull out

 

[Cowabunga]

it is them making the slippery slop

It doesn't matter who is making it. What matters is what is actually happening and the slippery slope is not imminent, but it is what the future holds almost certainly.

 

[Cowabunga]

Only if they can make their gloop / frankenfood cheap enough.
There appear to be massive problems with scaling up as the process is not something that can be easily replicated.
The other issues revolve around contamination, waste and public uptake.

Unless and until they can produce their gloop at well under the price per Kg of animal meat, it will not work and investors will pull out

Please don't assume that this isn't possible. I'm pretty sure that when scaled up, this stuff could easily undercut the economic production costs of farmed animals. Whether it would be more energy efficient is another matter but creative accounting would probably justify that, just as it will to justify aeroplane travel to be carbon-neutral. People will just 'want' to believe it.

You only have to look at the growth of Tesla to see how possible this can be with the 'right' people and the money. The money is not an issue. It's already available with almost no limit for the right company with the vision and competence to persuade the markets that they will succeed in vertically integrated alternative protein production. There is hardly any need for clever marketing as that is already being done for free. Just as it is for that other parallel product and brand, Tesla.

 

[Bald Rick]

You only have to look at the growth of Tesla to see how possible this can be with the 'right' people and the money. The money is not an issue. It's already available with almost no limit for the right company with the vision and competence to persuade the markets that they will succeed in vertically integrated alternative protein production. There is hardly any need for clever marketing as that is already being done for free. Just as it is for that other parallel product and brand, Tesla.

Different strokes.

As I mentioned, scaling up is the issue. The bioreactors are not capable of supplying the demand at scale and smaller factories would not be economic

Read this by David Humbird

Scale‐up economics for cultured meat

This analysis examines the potential of “cultured meat” products made from edible animal cell culture to measurably displace the global consumption of conventional meat. The bioreactor design, proces...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

As you will see, Humbird suggests that, at best and for low grade material, the price will be $25/Kg

 

[Henarar]

almost

An element of doubt

 

[Kevtherev]

Meat and dairy has been around for thousands of years and folk will still buy it no matter what the vegan movement tries to force upon us.
Dangerous times for farmers and farming in general and most of it is stirred up by the media spinning untruths out in their daily rants.
Us eating meat is no different to the lion snacking on an antelope on the savanna it’s called nature.
The real enemy of the globe and co2 is transport and air travel covid showed us this by the news reports about air quality
India being one such example with pictures widespread on the media.

 

[Cowabunga]

Different strokes.

As I mentioned, scaling up is the issue. The bioreactors are not capable of supplying the demand at scale and smaller factories would not be economic

Read this by David Humbird

Scale‐up economics for cultured meat

This analysis examines the potential of “cultured meat” products made from edible animal cell culture to measurably displace the global consumption of conventional meat. The bioreactor design, proces...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Never underestimate science and engineering. People did that with Tesla yet here he is selling cars that are produced with one third of the labour and selling at over three times the profit margin of rivals who have consistently said that it couldn't be done.
It can be done and there is massive investment into research and development to ensure that it can and will be done. It has now reached the point where it is like an unstoppable train that has left its station. It will be virtually impossible to slow it down, let alone stop it.

 

[Cowabunga]

An element of doubt

nothing is writ in stone when it comes to the future. Who could have predicted the timing of Covid with its worldwide implications coinciding with Brexit and a worldwide shortage looming of actual food, propping world prices [and ours] up? Not me, nor anyone else as I recall. A big war could break out tomorrow and all priorities may change. The odds are though...

 

[Bald Rick]

Meat and dairy has been around for thousands of years and folk will still buy it no matter what the vegan movement tries to force upon us.
Dangerous times for farmers and farming in general and most of it is stirred up by the media spinning untruths out in their daily rants.
Us eating meat is no different to the lion snacking on an antelope on the savanna it’s called nature.
The real enemy of the globe and co2 is transport and air travel covid showed us this by the news reports about air quality
India being one such example with pictures widespread on the media.

This video is very instructive vis methane

 

[Bald Rick]

Never underestimate science and engineering. People did that with Tesla yet here he is selling cars that are produced with one third of the labour and selling at over three times the profit margin of rivals who have consistently said that it couldn't be done.
It can be done and there is massive investment into research and development to ensure that it can and will be done. It has now reached the point where it is like an unstoppable train that has left its station. It will be virtually impossible to slow it down, let alone stop it.

Food is very price sensitive.

Unless they can produce gloop at below cost of real meat, it’s a non starter

 

[jerseycowsman]

That is the stated aim of Patrick Brown, CEO of Impossible Foods which creates meat substitutes using genetically engineered yeasts.
He is quoted in today’s Times as

”If we eliminated animal agriculture in the next 15 years it causes a pause in emissions that lasts 30 year. Biomass recovery alone will remove from the atmosphere the equivalent of 22 years of fossil fuel emissions at the current rate.”

‘Why is this important? Because cows and sheep produce huge volumes of methane - a powerful greenhouse gas. And if grazing land was used to grow trees it would create a huge carbon sink.’

Impossible Foods has raised its money from a variety of venture capitalist funders including Bill Gates.

it seems to me that every opportunity is being taken to demonise meat and dairy.
There was no counter argument to the fact that this is highly processed gloop and that VCs don’t invest out of the goodness of their hearts.

Except his lab grown sh!t uses more energy than the meat and animals he wants to replace!

 

[Macsky]

Ain‘t taking that bet …. There is an interesting piece in the business section of the same paper suggesting that this sort of “meat” will struggle to get below $50 per pound (as opposed to around $6 per pound from an animal) due to costs of scale and the acute problems of stopping contamination in the bio-reactors

Have you seen the film Informant! with Matt Damon? True story involving the contamination of lysine production from corn with a virus by a competitor, only one of many risks of massive centralisation of food production

 

[primmiemoo]

We have a name for the tactics used. It's cancel culture, with every scrap of tripe that can be skewed against livestock farming (wtf is this "animal agriculture" nonsense?) utilised against the shared human culture of rearing and keeping domesticated animals for our food, our clothing, and so many other benefits to humanity.
Call it out at every point where it occurs. Modern vegan activist thinking is an extreme, and it promotes cancel culture.

 

[Martin Holden]

If people want to eat meat and drink milk, farmers will produce it.

These nobheads will preach on the one hand what happens for the worse when any species becomes extinct, but on the other won’t see the downside of no livestock.

Livestock is an integral part of the circle of life and once it’s gone the law of unintended consequences will prevail.

It’s always the same. Whenever you challenge the contemporary position, you’ll get headlines by the bucket load. Defending the “norm” is always more difficult than attacking it. Just look at the the way the Brexit positions were argued before the vote! Hey ho more meat for me then if folk want to Eat “lab” food

 

[Matt Crooke]

B.O.L.L.O.C.K.

Never underestimate science and engineering. People did that with Tesla yet here he is selling cars that are produced with one third of the labour and selling at over three times the profit margin of rivals who have consistently said that it couldn't be done.
It can be done and there is massive investment into research and development to ensure that it can and will be done. It has now reached the point where it is like an unstoppable train that has left its station. It will be virtually impossible to slow it down, let alone stop it.

You need to have more confidence in your product. What is the nutrient density of these new foods? I bet they won’t be anywhere near the nutritional quality of the real thing and it’s not just engineering like building a car it’s far more complicated.

 

[Wellytrack]

Certainly there does seem to be an incredible potential for massive investment from the speculative funds that Agriculture does not.

With land being bought up by corporations to hedge against inflation, tax and carbon, things are looking quite favourable for fake foods.

Hopefully not.

 

[jerseycowsman]

Good point.

plus everyone ignores the massive implications of crypto. Bitcoin mining alone emits 25 million tons of CO2 annually alone.
The carbon footprint of a single mined bitcoin amounts to 190 tons, while to mine the equivalent value in gold, takes around 7% of that figure.
Even the transactional figures for bitcoin use the same amount of electricity as a typical household consumes in two months..

Wtf??? Why do we even need such a power hungry piece of crap??
not satisfied with gambling on the stock market and pissing about pushing money around all day, they come up with this shite!
I feel proud to actually produce something useful to the general population!

 

[Cowabunga]

Food is very price sensitive.

Unless they can produce gloop at below cost of real meat, it’s a non starter

I believe they will easily achieve that by a large margin on a massive factory scale where the labour per kilo of produce and the number of profit takers in the chain will be cut to near zero. Energy? Probably not so much, but that is only one element of the production cost and may well be taken from 'renewables'.