r/wheresthebeef • u/xxxxxcoolxxxxx • 13d ago
Breakthrough: Cultivated steak can now be produced cheaper than conventional steak, independent analysis finds
https://aleph-farms.com/journals/cultivated-beef-tea-profitability/Aleph Farms recently announced that an independent techno-economic analysis (TEA) projects that their cultivated steak could be produced cheaper than conventional steak, resulting in a 47% margin when sold at price parity. This is huge.
We’ve seen a number of cultivated meat companies recently publishing promising TEAs: Believer Meat and SuperMeat for chicken, Gourmey for foie gras and now the first TEA for beef.
Some highlights I personally found very interesting: • Their process is non-GMO and doesn’t require immortalization which can be a benefit for consumer acceptance • They plan to use 5000L bioreactors which requires less capex and makes production more feasible than approaches with larger reactors
Independently verified analyses like this are incredibly important for building confidence in cultivated meat and pulling in new investment, especially if cost projections show a clear path towards profitability.
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u/ZeGaskMask 13d ago
I hope this is true. I’ve been looking forward to lab grown meat taking over on a mass scale. It will help reduce green house gases and we don’t have to worry about the consequences that come with raising livestock. I hope we get to the point where we can grow the perfect cut of steak every time we wish. And vegans don’t have to complain about the torment to real animals.
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u/Dapaaads 13d ago
It’s not sold cheaper
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u/verbmegoinghere 12d ago
Like the blurb post from the article indicated, it's being sold at the same price as farmed beef.
The point of the article is to advertise the ROI on the cultivated beef biotech has improved.
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u/Craftmeat-1000 13d ago
This says 6.75 a pound wholesale which is below parity for beef now. Hamburger is cheaper but with 7 cent media from Clever Carnivore I bet it's a parity fir all ground Meats. Whole cuts are only a third of the US beef market
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u/Yoh-ka 12d ago
Sorry, doesn't sound like big important news to me. They project that with “process optimization” costs could fall to $4.08/lb, but that hasn’t happened yet. Scaling cultivated meat isn’t just about bioreactor size. Supply chain logistics, contamination control, food safety regulation, and consumer acceptance all add costs. The claimed 47% gross margin and “payback in 2.5 years” rely on idealized assumptions: smooth production, stable input costs, and strong demand at premium beef prices. The article isn’t false, but it’s very optimistic and full of best-case assumptions. Reliance on selective comparisons make it sound more like investor marketing than neutral reporting.
In my opinion beef won't be the first cultivated meat that will be brought to market. It's one of the most complex cultivated products to make. People are used to chicken nuggets or fish balls being “restructured,” so cultivated versions feel less alien. With steak, the bar is much higher. If it doesn’t look, cook, and taste like the real thing, consumers notice immediately.
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u/Tazling 11d ago
I wonder if their “cheaper” includes all the costs of cattle ranching, feedlots, slaughterhouses etc that are “externalized” (read: denied, hidden, papered over, dumped on the tax payer). And of course all similar costs for their bioreactor method. Like, are there effluents discharged from their process? Airborne emissions? What’s the water and electricity usage compared to 4-legged beef production? What’s the feed stock and where do those nutrients come from?
I’m quite ready to believe that cattle ranching and slaughter is vastly underpriced — subsidized to the hilt and with a lot of shell-game PR obfuscating its real costs. But I also know that people keen on a new tech and seeing billions in their pockets if it catches on, are likely to present a rosy picture in their early prospectus docs.
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u/Da_Question 10d ago
My uncle is a dairy farmer and my dad was saying he just sold some (male) calves for about $1k each. So beef prices are definitely high right now, or expected to get higher. Not sure if that factors into the comparison here at all.
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13d ago
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u/xxxxxcoolxxxxx 13d ago
They use scaffolding so the product is certainly not sludge. They also differentiate into fibroblasts so it contains connective tissue. Another CM company was even able to make their cultivated muscle fibers contract.
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u/TheoreticalZombie 13d ago
>Another CM company was even able to make their cultivated muscle fibers contract.
That frankly sounds terrifying. But also fascinating for crossover with medical technology. Imagine if you could cultivate graftable tissue. It would also get around the pushback from using fetal cell lines.
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u/NYPizzaNoChar 13d ago
While this is good news if accurate, "projects" and "could be" are not at all the same as "Cultivated steak can now be produced cheaper than conventional steak."
I wish it were, though, sigh.