Modern Farm Girls Podcast

There’s lots of buzz around lab-grown meat right now, and you may be thinking, “What is this stuff?” On this episode, I am joined by Paul Wood, AO (Officer of the Order of Australia), who is going to give us a crash course on lab-grown meat, including the process of growing meat from cells, all in inputs involved, actual cost behind production, and the final product results. Paul takes the emotion, ethics, and politics out of the issue by focusing only on the business and technology aspects.  Through his analysis, he has come to one conclusion - it won’t work - at least in its current form. There is a lot of work and tech advancement needed to produce cell-based meat at a level to make good on the lofty promise of feeding the world. Succinctly put, the technology works, but the business models don’t. As an immunologist with decades of experience in vaccinations and large-scale fermentation, Paul has an in-depth understanding of what it takes for these tech companies to produce food-grade products and the chal