7.5 million investment should make cultured meat burgers affordable

Mark Post's cultured meat burger has been in full development since its launch in 2013. Post's start-up Mosa Meat is getting a 7.5 million financial injection to eventually offer the €250,000 burger for €8.50. M Ventures, an investment arm of German pharmaceuticals Merck and Swiss meat processor Bell Food Group see bread in the cultured meat burger and are behind the investment.

On the Brightlands Maastricht Health Campus it should all happen. This is where the start-up Mosa Meat is located which is engaged in research into cultured meat. Maastricht University research leader Mark Post developed the first ever burger made entirely from animal cells grown in the laboratory. At its grand launch in 2013 in London, the cultured meat burger was still soft, somewhat dry, lacked fat and cost €250,000 per 100 grams.

Scaling up
So the burger is not yet suitable for the consumer market, but this investment should change that. With their first major, external investment, Mosa Meat, led by Mark Post and food technologist Peter Verstrate, will scale up the production process. The aim is to set up a production location somewhere in the Netherlands by 2021.