being top of the food chain has its
advantages
but it takes 65 billion farm animals
every year to feed our appetite for meat
and livestock farming is one of the
biggest causes of greenhouse gas
emissions
so two men are racing to come up with a
radical alternative they're using
competing methods but they share the
same bold ambition
my maid meet I think this is the new
future of meat farming 100 years we'll
look back on livestock in the same way
we do today the horse-drawn carriage
if successful they'll transform what's
on all our dinner plates I didn't think
this was going to change the world I
wouldn't be here but are we ready
most of us don't like to think too hard
about what goes into putting meat on our
plate
course it's a pity if you have four
small young ones or so they'll think oh
it's a shame but yeah somebody else to
do it
in the Netherlands one man is working
towards a future where we won't need to
kill a cow to eat beef I think it will
look back at these times as sort of
barbaric that we still kill animals for
our food live animals that are bred and
killed for our pleasure instead
professor mark post is growing his own
beef in a laboratory his innovation
could cause the biggest food revolution
since farming began 12,000 years ago and
all he needs to start is a piece of
flesh so small they could even be
extracted from a live animal
so this muscle has stem cells in it from
this piece of meat we can easily grow
10,000 kilos of beef whereas this animal
has only 100 kilos of beef a forest
appear Hank Moody been attending Kika
yeah the clocks now ticking mark has to
get his meat back to the lab before the
precious stem cells start to die
over in Los Angeles California a company
called beyond meat is also racing to
make meat outside the animal I wanted to
still in people the sense of urgency and
the the sense of scale of what we're
trying to do how's it going what we're
working on has global implications it's
really truly an epic challenge we've
relied on meat from animals for two
million years but how did you take the
animal out of the meat production
process Ethan Brown and his team believe
they found a better way to feed the
planet the black kale and particular
what's interesting meat is muscle which
animals build up over time from proteins
in the plants they eat
Ethan believes he can improve on nature
and instead of waiting for the animals
extract the plant proteins directly
using steam and pressure there then
rebuilt into something he calls plant
meat it's question just faceted news is
why would you run plant matter through
an animal to create meat when you could
actually get the constituent parts try
cooking plan and create meat
Ethan's creation has already attracted
some major investors including Bill
Gates we want to do some color imagery
as well for this galley and beyond meat
is one of a growing number of companies
hunting for the lucrative formula that
will convince the world's carnivores to
stop eating animals you want to become
the next great American Meat Company and
we're talk about feeding you know seven
soon to be nine billion people there's a
lot of money
what's happening was happened Dave on to
bring his product to the masses Ethan
aims to build a burger that's so meat
like consumers can't distinguish it from
the real deal we uh we got some mouths
more that smokiness into the flavor good
we do have a really broad set of
disciplines in terms of science so you
have everything from chemists to to
molecular biologists to culinary folks
so everybody in this room needs to be an
expert in exactly what makes meat needs
they have to understand meat like Jimi
Hendrix understood his guitar helping
make beyond meats burger is meaty as
possible is one of their newest recruits
John I am the texture guy the texture
analysis specialists it's a little
softer than usual
the goal is to bring forth that
mouthfeel of a nice chewy flavorful
maybe fatty burger another member of the
team is Simone she's attempting to
improve the burgers taste I'm a chemist
and I've worked here for a month I deal
with a lot of aroma and flavor and as
well as oils it's really cool because
every day we come up with a new formula
and maybe that's the best one and it's
gonna make it to the market who knows I
think so what we're looking for here is
the sizzle the aroma okay yep the team
will soon reveal their latest products
to investors and consumers yes that's
pretty good actually
but reinventing the most iconic of
American foods is a challenge that
doesn't face ething I look at what Henry
Ford did with automobile and how we
replace the horse-drawn carriage with
that and I think a lot about that that
he provided something to people it was
better yeah it's good I like it
I mean if we can do that if we can be
part of a small group of people that
separate meat from animals for the first
time in human history that is really
exciting across the Atlantic in
maastricht mark post is starting a
process he believes will revolutionize
the food chain one stem cell at a time
you see now this the tissue are all in
the bottom once extracted the cells are
placed in the nutrient-rich serum that
enables them to grow just as they would
inside an animal's body the technology
is not very hard you could do this
basically at home if you
yeah I think this is the new future of
meat farm the stem cells in this bottle
can feed two thousand people for a year
this little bottle here this is the
beginning of a industry that could be as
massive or even larger than meat
production is right now in 2013
mark revealed his first-ever lab-grown
beef burger to the world's press
everyone sitting here with bated breath
is dying to see what's underneath the
cloth okay
there's quite some intense taste close
to meet two years on he's still working
on the technology to scale up production
and there's some way to go it tastes
like what it looks like it tastes like a
hamburger the whole procedure takes
about nine weeks it's not exactly fast
food over in LA
Ethan Brown has no regrets about the
different paths his company is taking to
the marketplace I looked very carefully
at lab meat before I started this
company but what I didn't want was an
endless science project Ethan's already
selling his plans meat in supermarkets
and with the fourth biggest food company
in the US General Mills he's about to
launch a new range of ready meals Missy
aah
Ethan hopes they'll show everyone his
meat can replace the real thing at least
with the help of some spicy sources
these are largely ethnic dishes and
what's great about that is it's much
easier for the consumer to to basically
be fooled
today some of beyond meets investors are
tasting them for the first time this is
the last opportunity for us to fix
anything that might be wrong or to
improve anything that might need
improving so so it's important feedback
today I'm getting really bored fingers
definitely crossed yeah
good to see you so here we go with the
investors now assembled it's time for
Ethan to showcase the new dishes this is
that's rich or poor chicken Greg Boland
has 30 years experience in venture
capital and the lifetime's experience
eating meat well I'm probably the
toughest critic yeah very good deal yeah
surprisingly good great like that this
is the sweet potato beef chili give it a
good still warm I'm not there on this
one there was an underlying chemical
flavor to me but it was almost
industrial frozen and / industrial taste
okay it it felt vegan threat so you know
it is but that does mean I don't want to
order this is a curry huh mmm
this one's a little little bland he
feels a softer here fight feel it off to
me the curry flavor isn't strong enough
mm-hmm we're not there yet so we'll go
back to going board a little bit on some
of the dishes this is something that
would disrupt the way that we get
protein for the last two million years
and that's a really long process you
have travel adding his plan to me to
ready meals clearly has its challenges
that is short not on but Ethan's true
ambitions are even greater a plant meat
burger that's indistinguishable from the
real thing
smell and meaty the team has been
working on it for several years and now
Simone and John are testing the latest
version on the most discerning critic of
all the public I'd be really interesting
to see if people can tell if our burgers
are made of meat or if they're made a
plan here you go a little one right
thinking then turn the heat up if we
asked you if this was real meat or a
veggie murder would you say it's a
veggie burger probably or a very
overcooked burger okay I feel like I'm
eating him
I'm similar to a veggie burger but it's
similar to what I would expect for a
regular burger also okay great oh it's
definitely not me you taste a little bit
of the salmon in there famine a little
bit she's fishing okay okay but didn't
dates like me no but I thought it was
good well there were some people who
weren't entirely convinced or satisfied
by the texture or by the fat so those
are all things we can take back to the
lab with us and improve before the next
time we take it out and and show it off
to the world in Maastricht Mark and his
business partner Peter believe they will
be the ones to eventually taste success
yeah the more you try to make a
hamburger the more appreciative you
become of the real thing I mean it's a
it's a beautiful flower I have not seen
a vegetable substitute yet that can fool
me this Tector is actually the same as
ours
maybe the fibers are a little bit
forceful so what you think how long
before we reach this stadium two to
three years it's hard to predict exactly
what our dinner plates of the future
will hold but it's clear some of these
modern-day alchemists could be about to
make a killing the meat industry is an
industry with an over 1 trillion dollar
consumer value globally so it's it's
huge so I'm really enjoying this nothing
beats me
you