Originally published June 13, 2023 8:38 am PDT
JBS’s subsidiary, Bio Tech Foods, is set to construct a commercial-scale, cell-cultured meat plant in Spain, according to a press release from the Brazilian meatpacking firm.
This initiative, the “investMEAT project,” aims to upscale cultivated meat production to industrial levels, with backing from the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX).
The press release states that the project led by BioTech Foods would “allow a highly efficient cultivated meat production line, which will solve the challenges of current technology linked to scalability.”
The announcement comes amid growing interest in lab-grown meat as an alternative to traditional livestock farming.
Expected to be the “world’s largest” lab-grown meat plant, the factory “should produce more than 1,000 metric tons of cultivated beef per year,” according to JBS.
The firm also anticipates an expansion of capacity to 4,000 metric tons per year over the medium term.
The news emerged during the Wyoming Stockgrowers Association’s annual meeting in Riverton.
National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) President Todd Wilkinson voiced concerns over the potential impact on the cattle industry.
“We’ll gladly compete against that, but the consumer needs to know at the counter what they’re buying,” he stated, expressing concerns about a similar situation that arose in the milk industry when imitation products crowded the market.
Wilkinson expressed his desire to keep the beef industry distinct, stating, “I just don’t want the beef industry go by way of what happened to milk and lose the ability to identify our product as unique and natural.”
In addition to these concerns, Wilkinson pointed to a recent study highlighting the higher carbon footprint of lab-grown meat, asserting, “They can say that it’s designed to feed the world, but it’s feeding the world a non-natural product and it’s a product that is going to require more energy to produce, and don’t tell me it’s sustainable.”
The cutting-edge plant aims to commence operations in mid-2024, according to the press release.
Last month, American Faith reported on a special issue of Animal Frontiers that debunked the popular belief that meat consumption is harmful to human health and the environment.
The study authors argued that meat is crucial for human health.
They emphasized the impact of low meat intake on poorer communities, which often experience stunting, wasting, and anemia due to insufficient protein and vital nutrients.
Dr. Alice Stanton, of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, one of the paper’s authors, said, “The peer-reviewed evidence published reaffirms that [the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Risk Factors Report] which claimed that consumption of even tiny amounts of red meat harms health is fatally scientifically flawed.”
Stanton went on to say that removing fresh meat and dairy from diets “would harm human health” and that “Women, children, the elderly and low income would be particularly negatively impacted.
