“This ban is a massive win for Texas ranchers, producers, and consumers,” Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said in a statement following the bill’s passage. “Texans have a God-given right to know what’s on their plate, and for millions of Texans, it better come from a pasture, not a lab. It’s plain cowboy logic that we must safeguard our real, authentic meat industry from synthetic alternatives.”
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Texas joins Indiana, Mississippi, Montana and Nebraska in enacting new laws this year; Alabama and Florida did so last year. In March, the Oklahoma House approved a similar bill that did not advance out of the Senate this session.
I’m pretty sure this is a huge self own and in a decades time Texans who enjoy knowing what’s on their plate will be envious of their interstate bretheren enjoying tastier healthier cuts at a reduced price.
Congratulations, you understand every Texas legislative session since Ann Richards was governor.
Lab grown animal cells will always be more expensive than animal-grown animal cells. Animals have immune systems; lab cells have to be kept in a sterile environment, a significant cost. Animals have digestive systems and can power cell growth and all other functions from common plant materials; lab cells have to be fed pre-digested and carefully proportioned material, a significant cost. Animals have circulatory systems that efficiently perfuse oxygen and nutrients, and remove waste; lab cell containers have to be centrifuged in small containers because the forces required in large containers damage the cells. And so on.
The real potential for equal-tasting, cheaper, better-for-environment cuts is in plant-based imitations like what Impossible brand and its competitors are doing.
These laws banning lab grown cells are banning designer lab-grown cuts as a luxury good. Once that market matures, I am sure the wealthy people who jump on the conspicuous consumption bandwagon will not have any problem getting the law repealed or exceptions carved out for them.
Your entire comment assumes the state of the art for lab growing proteins is static and will not enjoy economies of scale.
I am sure it will enjoy economies of scale. Lab grown meat is currently something like 1000x the cost of animal-grown meat: I am confident they can get that down to 10x, maybe single digits. I am equally confident the inherent inefficiency of growing muscle cells without the integrated functions of the rest of the animal mean the lab cost will never be lower.
1,000×? That’s ancient history. In 2013, yeah, the first cultured burger was $330,000 (Wikipedia). Now?
SuperMeat is running full 25,000 L tanks at $11.79/lb (Green Queen, AgFunderNews) — that’s premium chicken territory, not sci-fi pricing.
Believer Meats is modeling $6.20/lb with TFF tech (Green Queen) — organic chicken prices.
Average industry cost right now is $17–23/lb (Katie Couric Media) and even a conservative academic model puts big-scale production at $28.50/lb (ScienceDirect). Still single-digit multiples, not thousands.
So no — we’re not talking “someday maybe.” We’re already at 2–4× conventional chicken for the best setups, and the price curve is still falling. Will it ever be cheaper than farm-grown? Maybe, maybe not — inefficiency is real. But “never” is a bet against tech that’s already crushed costs by over 99.99% in a decade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosa_Meat
https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/supermeat-cultivated-lab-grown-meat-cost-process
https://agfundernews.com/supermeat-offers-glimpse-into-a-future-where-cultivated-meat-can-be-produced-at-scale-for-11-79-lb
https://katiecouric.com/news/sustainability/what-is-lab-grown-meat-benefits-and-challenges
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666154322000916
You’ve really just enumerated some of the advantages traditional production has over synthetic meats.
Animals need arable land - something which will be in very short supply given climate change.
Animals are a significant source of greenhouse gas production.
Raising animals is in many cases unethical.
Synthetic meat production is not as dependent on regular climate cycles.
Animal husbandry is a mature technology with little opportunity for advancement.
I wish my stomach could handle impossible meats but they just immediately go through me. For me going towards a more plant based diet will require avoiding highly processed meat replacements.
That’s interesting, I hadn’t realized they affected some people that way. I have noticed their “beef” and “pork” products include a lot of fat, maybe the greasy slipperiness contributes to the effect? I’d like to think use in dishes where the other ingredients are low-fat would balance things out, but if not that’s sad for that brand.
In my case it’s the pea protein isolates. That burger spent so little time in my belly that I doubt I digested much of it.
edit: pea proteins are a known problem for my family
that explains a lot. there’s that restaurant down in santa nella that you either love or it gives you the runs and i never thought it was a heritable pea protein thing.
It’s specifically the ultra processed isolated proteins from peas. I can eat cooked peas or raw in pod peas without a problem but vegan pea based “ice cream” is in my belly for minutes at best. For ice cream replacements it has to be oat or coconut based.
thank you for sharing more info. i’ve not explored it too much myself.
Reduced price seems like a massive stretch.
The costs of production are decreasing dramatically.
The most recent development is switching to a plant based growth medium instead of fetal bovine serum (?) which will reduce costs by 80%.
So long as there are multiple producers they will compete on price.
The fact that you think it’ll be cheaper shows you havent been paying very much attention to capitalism.
Everytime a thing like this comes along, that promises a cheaper, better solution… It ends up being neither .
This isbpatently false, and disregards the fundamentals of economics. Well done.
Oh well, if you say it, it must be true… even if it flies in the face of established capitalist behavior and precedent.
Yes capitalists are profit maximisers.
However, many competing producers will minimise the cost to consumers.
This is true of any technology ever developed.