NETHERLANDS – Dutch food tech company Mosa Meat has hosted the European Union’s first public tasting of cultivated beef at its Maastricht test kitchen. 

The startup, which made headlines over a decade ago by producing the world’s first cultivated meat burger, gathered Dutch cattle farmers, food developers, and industry leaders to sample their latest innovation.

This event comes in the wake of the Dutch government’s implementation of a Code of Practice last year, enabling companies to conduct public tastings of cultivated meat and seafood before receiving full approval for sale within the EU. 

This tasting was particularly significant as it provided a unique opportunity for the public to experience cultivated beef firsthand.

The attendees sampled hybrid beef patties, crafted by Mosa Meat’s product development team. 

These patties combined cultivated beef fat with a custom plant-based mixture, mirroring traditional minced beef which varies in fat content (such as 80/20 or 90/10). 

Mosa Meat is currently refining the optimal balance between cultivated fat and plant-based ingredients to perfect their product.

The primary goal of the tasting was to gauge market readiness and gather feedback from culinary experts to further refine their product. 

The event follows Mosa Meat’s successful €40 million (US$42.4 million) fundraising round in April 2024, the largest investment in a cultivated meat company since November 2022. 

This funding has elevated the company’s total investment to over US$135 million, providing essential resources to scale production and expedite their market entry.

Mosa Meat’s journey began in 2013 when they introduced their first cultivated meat burger, costing US$330,000 for two proof-of-concept patties. 

Since then, they have drastically reduced production costs. 

In 2020, they slashed the price of their growth medium by 80 times, and in 2021, reduced the cost of their fat medium by 66 times.

Currently, Mosa Meat’s cultivated beef is under evaluation by the Singapore Food Agency, which was the first regulatory body to approve cultivated meat for sale with Eat Just’s Good Meat chicken in 2020, and has since approved cultivated quail from Australia’s Vow.

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