Brazilian meat and poultry giant JBS is entering the realm of cell-base meat (also called cultured or lab-produced) in a big way through buying Spain’s BioTech Foods and putting $100 million into new facilities.
Around $41 million will be used to build a new production plant for BioTech which could produce up to 1,000 tones of cultivated meat a year, according to Brazilian newspaper Valor, which sees the production going to hamburgers. Much of the remaining funds will go to building a cultivated meat research and development centre in Brazil.
According to reports, the Brazilian R&D centre will be headed by two of the country’s top specialists in bioengineering and will employ around 25 researchers.
Cultured meat is produced by in vitro cell cultures of animal cells. It creates a food that is biologically the same as meat but can be made without harming or slaughtering animals. It can also be produced with far fewer resources than conventional meat, including land, water, and animal feed.
This is not the first time the company – which makes around $50 billion each year – has taken a stab at alternative meats. In April of this year it bought Europe’s third-largest plant-based food producer, Vivera Foods, for €341 million.
