Dusseldorf The manufacturer of Bärchenwurst wants to sell hot dogs with meat from cell cultures in the future. A subsidiary of In Family Foods has submitted an application to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for approval of the product, the traditional German family business announced on Thursday. This is a first in the EU.
“We are taking an important step towards the industrial implementation of cultivated meat products,” says Wolfgang Kühnl, managing partner of In Family Foods.
The hybrid hot dog was developed by the Heidelberg foodtech company The Cultivated B, which is part of the group. It consists of vegan ingredients and pork from cell cultures that are grown in a bioreactor. The second largest sausage manufacturer in Germany is best known for its bear sausage. The Versmold-based company also produces plant-based sausages under the Billie Green brand.
So far, no manufacturer in the world has taken the step of approving so-called in-vitro meat in the EU. Cultured meat is considered a novel food. “EFSA’s approval process for novel foods is one of the toughest in the world. It includes a thorough and evidence-based assessment of food safety and nutritional value,” says Seth Roberts, policy manager at the think tank Good Food Institute Europe (GFI).
As soon as the EU authority receives the dossier for the hybrid hot dog, it has nine months to carry out a risk assessment. Previous procedures have sometimes taken several years. The GFI, which campaigns for alternative proteins, welcomed the German move: “The availability of cultured meat in Europe would represent a paradigm shift for the sector. After all, it was first developed in Europe.”
The first burger made from cell cultures cost 250,000 euros
Exactly ten years ago, biomedical scientist Mark Post, founder of Mosa Meat from Maastricht, presented the world’s first burger from a petri dish in London. At the time, it cost an impressive 250,000 euros to produce. According to GFI, 156 companies worldwide are now working on meat or fish from cell cultures, of which around 30 are in Europe.
The Cultivated B has been developing turnkey bioreactors as well as cell lines and culture media for in vitro meat since 2021. At the same time as the application to Efsa, In Family Foods announced that it wanted to produce its own cultivated meat in the future. “Our group is decisively pushing forward the industry of meat production without slaughtered animals for the general public,” said Hans-Ewald Reinert, also managing partner of the group.
The scientist presented the first burger with meat grown in the laboratory in 2013.
(Photo: Reuters)
“Cultivated meat has the potential to fundamentally change the meat market,” explains agricultural expert Klaus-Martin Fischer from the Ebner Stolz consultancy. The technology now enables prices close to conventional meat and is on the threshold of mass market viability.
In Family Foods sees itself on the right track here: “In the laboratory we can grow a kilo of meat from cell cultures for three to five euros,” said managing director Kühnl recently to the Handelsblatt. “We have already been able to reduce the cost of culture media by a thousandth.”
It was possible to produce growth proteins cheaply through precision fermentation using bacteria. In the future, these could also be grown in plants. The industry has long since stopped needing animal fetuses in culture media to stimulate the cells to divide.
The former competitors merged in 2020. Today In Family Foods is more than a sausage manufacturer.
(Photo: InFamilyFoods)
Mass production and acceptable prices compared to slaughtered meat are considered the biggest challenges for cultured meat. “We can remove these obstacles,” says Hami Noori, boss of The Cultivated B.
Singapore and the USA are pioneers for in-vitro meat
The industry has recently made great progress towards marketability. In July, the Israeli start-up Aleph Farms applied for approval of its cultured beef steaks in Switzerland. These will one day be sold with the Migros supermarket chain. The application in Great Britain followed a month later.
Cultured meat has been allowed to be produced and sold in the USA for the first time since the end of June. The US Department of Agriculture had officially approved chicken meat from Californian manufacturers Good Meat and Upside Foods.
After Singapore, the USA is only the second country in the world where meat from cell cultures is allowed to be sold. In 2020, the city-state approved cultured chicken meat from Eat Just, Good Meat’s parent company.
“In the laboratory we can grow a kilo of meat from cell cultures for three to five euros,” says In Family Foods managing director Wolfgang Kühnl.
(Photo: InFamilyFoods)
Consumer acceptance is crucial for the breakthrough of meat grown in bioreactors: around a third of Germans would be willing to include meat from cell cultures in their diet, according to a current survey by market researcher Ipsos. The younger the respondents are and the more meat they eat, the more open-minded they are. Those surveyed cited the avoidance of animal suffering, a more sustainable future and climate protection as advantages.
Good for animal welfare and the environment
In the ecological balance, in-vitro meat performs significantly better than slaughtered meat. If green electricity is used, the carbon footprint of beef shrinks by up to 92 percent. This was determined by the research consultancy CE Delft and the GFI. In addition, compared to animal breeding, land and water are saved, and antibiotics, as in factory farming, are unnecessary.
>> Read here: Why the days of cheap pork are over
The classic ham and sausage division of In Family Foods, which was recently valued at 735 million euros, is currently struggling with problems. Pork is becoming more and more expensive, but at the same time consumption is falling significantly. The company, which has 2,750 employees, is therefore reducing more than a fifth of its capacity. The sausage factory in Vörde and the ham factory in Lörrach are closing.
Instead, entrepreneurs Kühnl and Reinert invest heavily in cultivated meat. The Cultivated B is fully financed for three years with a double-digit million amount from her private assets. Follow-up financing will be available in a year. Kühnl says: “We are open to investors – preferably a family office.”
More: “Bärchenwurst” manufacturer: “There are immense distortions in the meat market”