10. Meat breweries of the future

In this episode we sit down with Parendi Birdie, who's a highly purpose-driven and deeply knowledgeable woman.

Her life's work is all about finding out how we as humanity, in a more sustainable and healthy way, could be growing meat and animal fat without the animal itself. Along her journey she got herself a degree in biochemistry with the aim of building the industry of cultivated meat and she became one of the first scientists at one of the hottest food start-ups in Silicon Valley, called Hampton Creek (now Just). That journey has led her to where she is today, a company called Mission Barns.

With livestock as one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problem, Mission Barns is focused on cultivating animal fat—without the animal. Its technology platform enables starting from a handful of pork, poultry, or beef cells and feeding them a plant-based feedstock inside a cultivator. Why fat, you might ask yourself? Over a short period of time, the novel process creates real, pure animal fat that delivers the mouthfeel and flavour of meat without raising and slaughtering live animals, and uses a fraction of the carbon emissions, water, and land required by conventional animal agriculture. They do this without slaughter houses and occupying vast amounts of land, but instead in something that looks pretty much like a beer brewery.

It might sound like science fiction - but it's not anymore.