Myria Meat: Real meat without animals should encourage conscious eating

“We make meat without animals,” explains Myria Meat CEO Florian Hüttner. More precisely: his start-up produces pork without pigs having to die. What he does is called cultivated meat. This is identical to the meat that people eat today. However, it is grown directly from animal cells.

The start-up, founded in 2022, has developed a technology with which stem cells taken from animals can be grown in bioreactors and thus produced real meat. One stem cell from a pig is enough to produce an infinite amount of pork. “The cells divide permanently, without genetic change,” explains Hüttner. All you need is “a few milligrams of tissue.” You can imagine it like a dermatologist removing a mole, explains Hüttner.

The cells from animals that have already been slaughtered can also be used or obtained by taking blood. But Myria Meat chose stem cells from a country pig that was “normally raised”. All of this sounds promising, but how exactly does it work?

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In contrast to other companies that already had the idea of ​​producing “meat without animals”, Myria Meat was founded on the basis of basic research. That means, first the research, then the idea. The beginnings of the start-up go back to research results from the University of Göttingen.

Professor Dr. Wolfram Zimmermann, co-founder of Myria Meat, heads the Institute of Pharmacology at the University Hospital of Göttingen. With his team, he has developed heart muscle cells for people that are used in human medicine. Hüttner and Zimmermann then came up with the idea of ​​transferring this technology to animals to produce cultured meat.

The starting material for production are so-called pluripotent stem cells from animals. These are cells from which any organ or tissue can develop. These cells are propagated in a bioreactor, grow and divide.

Finished meat in six weeks

“In the reactor we make small cell aggregates that not only contain muscle cells, but also connective tissue cells and fat cells,” describes Hüttner. The resulting mass can be used to produce meat-like products.

For example, by adding plant proteins. This is called “hybrid cultivated meat products”. But Myria Meat doesn’t do that. “That’s where the magic just begins for us,” says Hüttner.

Instead of removing the mass, the company allows the cells to continue to grow. “Other companies have dead cells and we have live, real cells that move and contract,” he explains.

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Just like animals, cells also need nourishment. That’s why Myria Meat adds effervescent tablets containing proteins, amino acids and salts to the cells in the reactor. The effervescent tablets dissolve and the cells then float in the liquid. Through further growth in the bioreactor, Myria Meat develops muscle tissue from the animal that can be trained. And meat can be produced from it. Because meat equals muscle.

The company is currently concentrating on the production of pork, which is the easiest. But the process is identical for every animal species, you just have to work with different cells. At the same time, Myria Meat also works on beef, lamb and venison. “We are initially concentrating on the large animal species that have the greatest impact on the environment,” says Hüttner.

Cows are considered the biggest climate sinners in the animal kingdom. The production of cultured meat should save 80 to 90 percent of the footprint of conventional animal meat production, says Hüttner. This includes water, CO₂ and agricultural land and the associated deforestation.

The process until the finished meat takes six weeks. “A cow needs two years, a pig eight months, and for us it takes six weeks,” says Hüttner. By this he means the time until the animals are slaughtered.

“We are pro farmers”

The company is currently still in the laboratory phase. But the first prototype already exists. “We transferred the process from humans to animals within a year and proved that our process can create a real animal muscle,” says Hüttner.

Our own factory with bioreactors may come next year. But for this Myria Meat needs a large round of financing. “For scaling and for approval,” explains the CEO. Approval in Germany is a “not insignificant” procedure. But his team has an advantage because the procedure has already been tested and approved in the medical field. The first larger fillet is scheduled to be produced this year.

Myria Meat does not see itself as competition to manufacturers of meat substitute products such as Beyond Meat or Planted. “These are alternative protein producers who don’t have the motivation to make meat. That’s not what we do. We make meat. “That’s a huge difference,” says Hüttner.

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They also don’t want to replace traditional farmers. “We don’t want to push anyone away. We are pro-farmers,” he continues. Because agriculture is also a cultural asset. The company wants to create a counterbalance to factory farming. Because when it comes to meat consumption, “humanity has taken a wrong turn somewhere, and that’s where we start,” says Hüttner.

“We want to encourage conscious meat consumption.” Myria Meat has received positive feedback from vegetarians. According to Hüttner, they would “eat meat again.” Myria Meat does not know whether the cultivated pork will also be accepted by vegans. “That would be exciting to hear,” said Hüttner.

Meat factory of the future

The Myria Meat team is led by Hüttner, Gunther Zimmermann (Co-CEO) and Timm Eiffler (CMO). In addition to the management, the team mainly consists of scientists, the laboratory team.

In contrast to other providers of cultured meat, Myria Meat has a lead thanks to decades of research. Even multi-million dollar VC financing rounds cannot compensate for this advantage, says Hüttner.

Myria Meat doesn’t have to expand its team much because the process is there. The goal is to build a “meat factory of the future”. “Ideally made in Germany,” adds Hüttner.