A leading cultivated-meat exec thinks price parity is not far off

Although there’s only one (1) country in the world that currently allows the sale of cultivated-meat products, some industry execs forecast rapid advancement in the near future.

Israel-based Aleph Farms, one of the most well-capitalized cultivated-meat companies in the world, expects to reach price parity with conventional products by 2028,  co-founder and CEO Didier Toubia said at our September event.

“Beef is priced much higher than chicken or even pork, so I believe that cultivated-beef products will reach price parity with conventional meat products quicker than cultivated chicken, for instance,” he added.

In recent years, some studies—like the industry-infamous 2020 techno-economic analysis—have concluded that cultivated meat is unlikely to ever become cost-competitive.

Toubia said during the event that such analyses are a “good basis for discussion, but they don’t necessarily take into account the level of innovation our companies…are implementing to make a change in those basic assumptions.”

Aleph Farms is focused on cultivated beef—mostly steak—and is aiming to make its first-ever product of thin-cut steaks “available to diners in 2023, pending regulatory approval,” per its website. The company moved into a new 65,000-square-foot facility in February, an increase in space that it claimed would enable it to pilot production and pursue additional R&D.

Looking ahead…Toubia said most cultivated-meat companies will begin in a “food service environment” rather than retail, but by 2030 he believes we’ll see cultivated meat and seafood on shelves in supermarkets.

“But I assume it will still be the first years of cultivated meat moving into this channel,” Toubia said, “So it might not yet be on every shelf at every grocery and any corner close to us, but it will definitely be in the process of ramping up.”