Meet Gourmey, a brand new French startup that not too long ago raised a $10 million founding spherical in fairness and debt. The startup is engaged on meat grown in laboratories from animal cells. In explicit, the corporate is specializing in poultry and goals to persuade cooks that they need to use the corporate’s merchandise of their eating places.
“We’ve been raising animals for 20,000 years,” co-founder and CEO Nicolas Morin-Forest informed me. “We grow cells, which is much more efficient because you only produce what you eat.”
Victor Sayous and Antoine Davydoff, the 2 different co-founders, have a background in molecular and cell biology. When they teamed as much as create a startup, they began taking a look at intensive livestock farming.
“When you dip your toes in that, you realize that this isn’t exclusively about animal welfare — it’s also about the planet, humans,” Morin-Forest stated.
Gourmey is a part of a gaggle of startups that need to create meat options and switch them into mass-market merchandise. The first era of startups that needed to exchange conventional meat guess closely on plant-based substitutes. Beyond Meat and Livekindly Collective are some well-known examples.
More not too long ago, a brand new era of startups have been specializing in cell-based meat, akin to Eat Just, Mosa Meat and Meatable. Gourmey is the primary French startup engaged on lab-grown meat.
Like different lab-grown meat startups, Gourmey depends on stem cells. Combined with the suitable vitamins on the proper temperature, these cells mature in a bioreactor.
Gourmey is beginning with a premium product and a premium distribution technique. The startup has been engaged on cultivated foie gras or — as they are saying — slaughter-free foie gras. Reproducing the style of foie gras can also be a fancy process, which implies that Gourmey is setting excessive expectations.
In some international locations, there’s such a stigma connected to foie gras that it has been faraway from grocery store cabinets. As a consequence, some individuals could be tempted by lab-grown foie gras. Gourmey hopes that cooks particularly will strive its first product and use it of their high-end eating places. Gourmey hopes to promote its product kind of on the identical worth as common foie gras.
The concept is to launch extra mass-market merchandise because the startup scales. Once it has optimized its manufacturing traces and there’s sufficient demand for Gourmey’s merchandise, you may anticipate to see different rooster and duck merchandise.
There are some regulatory hurdles to beat earlier than lab-grown startups can promote their merchandise all over the world. Eat Just began promoting lab-grown meat in Singapore however it might take a number of years earlier than you see cultivated meat in Europe for example. Food security regulators should approve these new merchandise.
When it involves Gourmey’s funding, Point Nine and Air Street Capital are co-leading the $10 million seed spherical. Heartcore Capital, Partech, Big Idea Ventures, Eutopia, Ataraxia, Beyond Investing ans a number of angel buyers are additionally investing. Gourmey additionally acquired some help from public establishments, akin to Bpifrance and the European Commission.
“Cultivated meat is one of the most promising solutions to deliver energy-efficient, sustainable proteins to the world,” Point Nine managing accomplice Christoph Janz stated in a press release. “However, taste parity will remain the key success factor. We have been truly impressed by Gourmey’s delicious products and the company’s ability to progress both on the science and the flavor at record speed.”
With this funding, the corporate plans to create its pilot manufacturing line in Paris. It expects to have the ability to promote its foie gras merchandise in late 2022 or early 2023.
Image Credits: Gourmey
