Meat produced in an alternative way

“I’m obsessed with two things: animals and science,” writes Shannon Falconer on her LinkedIn profile. The trained biochemist took an important step towards combining her two obsessions in 2016 when she founded the company Bio-Craft (formerly Because Animals). She left her post-doctoral research fellowship at Stanford University and from then on dedicated herself to the creation of meat-based, nutrient-dense pet food “that doesn’t come at the expense of harming the environment or other animals,” as she says.

Consumers, but also more and more companies in the pet supplies industry, are becoming increasingly aware of how large the environmental footprint of pet food is. Studies have shown that an average-sized dog generates 770 kg of CO₂, and an even bigger dog can emit upwards of 2 500 kilograms of CO₂, which is twice as much as the emissions deriving from an average family car per year. Another study result is alarming as well: more than 25 per cent of the environmental impact of animal agriculture is attributed to feeding pets in the US alone.  

Bio-Craft wants to take a different approach. The company, which is incorporated in Delaware, USA, and Vienna, Austria, is working on the production of safe, sustainable and cruelty-free farmed meat to replace conventionally farmed meat for animal feed. Falconer says: “It’s not a meat alternative; it’s meat produced in an alternative way that does not rely on conventional animal agriculture practices.” 

The alternative production method is to grow animal cells under gentle process conditions inside a bioreactor, which provides a similar environment to cells grown inside an animal’s body. Bio-Craft emphasises that their cultivated meat has a similar consistency to the meat slurry used in traditional pet food manufacture. It offers the same taste that dogs and cats crave plus all the essential nutrients pets need, without chemical contaminants, antibiotics, steroids or other hormones.  

Bio-Craft cultivated meat can be used in either wet, dry or fresh pet food with comparable functionality to traditional meat slurry. In other words, it can satisfy a diversity of desires of cats and dogs, but has the additional benefit of offering more personalised nutritional profiles for pets with specific dietary needs than conventional meat, according to Bio-Craft.

However, the company is also aware that there…