use of microbial organisms Like yeast and fungi as cellular factories for the production of animal proteins, Pat Brown and his senior team at Impossible Foods launched the modern micro-fermentation industry.
Within a few years, Clara Foods, Geltor, and Perfect Day were using this technology to produce a variety of egg, dairy, and collagen ingredients. By the late 2010s, these early movers had raised hundreds of millions of dollars and dozens of other startups had followed in their footsteps.
Over-reliance on listing abilities
Today, recognition of the industry’s promise is being generalized. Environmental figures such as George Monbiot declare micro-fermentation “may be the most important environmentally friendly technology of all.” Supporters position it as a promising solution to limited supplies of traditional animal products.
Given the enthusiasm, investors, as well as commentators, are urging the companies to begin large-scale production as soon as possible. Thus, the talking lights in the industry have now focused on: How do we build enough capacity to meet future demand, which could rise to tens of millions of tons by 2030? A puzzling and undoubtedly important question.
To get proper economies of scale for commodity food products, it is best that the precision brewing industry focus on a few areas.
However, this almost unique focus on capacity is troubling. It seems to be implied: the economics of the microbrewing unit have basically been solved, and all that remains is to build the factories. We will eventually need more factories, yes.
And the micro-fermentation sector should not shy away from its pursuit of mass bio-industrialization, a necessary condition for overcoming animal farming. But we must also stay true to the science, which says that the critical work to be done in micro-fermentation of cheap, animal-free alternatives is not just building or enabling capabilities, but designing radically new or improved production systems.
I’ll let you in on an open secret: Leading scientists and technologists from industry and academia tend to tell me—often in quiet, sometimes just off-the-record tones—that the economics of microfermentation of food is nowhere near competitive with dairy or eggs.
They warn that this problem will not be solved simply by upgrading to larger tank sizes. At best, scaling up production to massive tank sizes will reduce costs by 35% to 40% rather than the many-fold reduction required.