Future Fields Unveils First-of-Its-Kind Insect Bioreactors Producing Growth Media to Unlock Cellular Meat at Mass-Market Scale and Cost

Future Fields, the company bringing mass-market cost and scale to cellular meat, today unveils its patent-pending process for using Drosophila melanogaster - the common fruit fly - to produce cellular growth media at mass-market scale and up to 10,000X cheaper than competing products.

Growth factor proteins signal to cells when and how to grow but past generations of cellular meat used fetal bovine serum (FBS) harvested from slaughterhouses or growth factors produced by microbes. Both approaches are expensive and difficult to scale for mass-market products and keep cellular meat hovering around $50 per pound compared to the average of less than $6 per pound for steak in the U.S.

“Efficiency in single-cell systems is inherently limited because of costly cultures, growth media to support the growth of these cells, and antibiotics to prevent contamination,” explains Dr. Matt Anderson-Baron, Future Field’s Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder. “We’ve circumvented all of these issues completely by using insects that are self-contained bioreactors capable of expressing nearly any protein or growth factor.”

Fruit Flies Unlock Mass-Market Cellular Agriculture
Future Field’s Drosophila bioreactor approach clears the way for cellular meat and other agricultural products thanks to the significant advantages it has over other production methods including:

Mass-Market Cost - customized bioproducts up to 10,000X cheaper than the competition depending on the product

Mass-Market Scale - insects eat a basic organic diet instead of expensive growth media and are reared in simple cages that are scaled with minimal use of space

Species Specificity - cells for meat, dairy, leather, or other animal products from any species - cow, pig, chicken, etc. - are cultured with growth factors specific to that species

Quality - insect cells possess the necessary machinery to facilitate complex protein production and therefore do not compromise on quality as E.coli, plant, or yeast systems do

Sustainable Cellular Agriculture
A growing global population is expected to increase the need for food by 70 to 100 percent by 2050. Meanwhile, climate change and environmental impacts from industrial farming continue to raise grave concerns about the world’s ability to meet that need. Cellular agriculture is one of several new approaches to creating high-quality protein with less impact on land, water, and other environmental resources.

“Drosophila help us fulfill cellular agriculture’s mandate to reduce environmental impacts while producing high-quality protein for a growing global population,” says Jalene Anderson-Baron, Future Field’s COO, who first proposed the use of fruit flies. “We can farm them on a sustainable diet, they are very efficient at converting food into body mass, they get the water they need from their food, and can be farmed close to production facilities reducing the need for transportation.”

Today’s news comes on the heels of Future Fields’ successful US$2.2M seed funding round and the shipping of the company’s first product - a proprietary version of the FGF2 growth factor protein - to cellular meat producers.

About Future Fields
Future Fields is unleashing cellular agriculture by creating custom growth media - the most important component of cellular agriculture - that is cost-effective, scalable, and optimized for the future of food. The company was founded in 2018 by CEO Lejjy Gafour, COO Jalene Anderson-Baron, and Chief Scientific Officer Matt Anderson-Baron. Future Fields is headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, and is backed by marquee venture capitalists including Bee Partners and Y Combinator. For information, visit FutureFields.io.

Media Contact
Sean Yokomizo
On behalf of Future Fields
press@futurefields.io
925.878.1200
###

Contact Information

Sean S Yokomizo

Consultant

Future Fields

(1) 925.878.1200

seanyokomizo@gmail.com