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You're absolutely right that conventional chicken is the hardest nut to crack when it comes to achieving price parity (beef and pork are easier), but I'm much m
by sethbannon 10y ago
You're absolutely right that conventional chicken is the hardest nut to crack when it comes to achieving price parity (beef and pork are easier), but I'm much more optimistic than you.
In 2013, the first cultured burger cost $330,000 to make. Just under a year ago, Memphis Meats was at $18,000/lb of clean beef produced. Now they're at $9,000/lb. This is before any sort of efficiencies from scale, and before many steps of the process have been anywhere near fully optimized. They expect their costs to reach 2 cents/g by 2021, which would be cost competitive.
And while chickens are somewhat efficient, they're not as efficient as culturing techniques ought to be at scale. Memphis Meats' process will require 3 calories of input to produce 1 calorie of beef. That's just better than chicken, and massively better than beef or pork.
- cderwin 10y agoA couple comments who knows absolutely nothing about how this works: * They don't need to reach price parity to be financially successful. I'm sure there are people out there (former vegans/vegetarians or those considering veganism/vegetarianism) who would pay a marked up price. People already pay marked up proces for things like grass-fed beef and uncured meats. * Is there any evidence that these price decreases hold at scale? There's a world of difference in being able to provide a market niche with artificial chicken at low cost and being able to produce enough chicken for the whole market at those marginal costs.