CULT Food Science Corp said its portfolio company Mogale Meat Co has successfully created its first cultivated chicken breast product, the first of its kind in Africa.
The Mogale team showcased the first prototype, composed of real chicken muscle and fat cells blended with a mushroom matrix, to the public on March 30, 2022, marking a major milestone for the company which is planning further prototypes.
Mogale has been working over the past eight months to produce Africa’s first chicken breast prototype using cultivated meat technology to compete in the global $15million XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion (XPRIZE) competition.
“The opportunities presented by advancements in technology to allow for Mogale to be able to cellularly cultivate chicken in a more sustainable fashion is incredible and will undoubtedly lead to a better future in Africa and the rest of the world,” said Lejjy Gafour, president of CULT, in a statement.
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CULT management expects 2022 to be an exciting year for Mogale, with the team quickly expanding as it prepares to open a seed round of funding in the second or third quarter of the year.
Mogale’s first cultivated wildlife meat prototype is planned to be revealed later this year as it strives to improve the socio-economic and environmental impacts of consumer protein products in Africa, the company said.
“Our next goal will be game meats, a variety of meats that are not only widely consumed in Africa, but also sought after as healthy lean meats in many countries around the world,” said Dr Paul Bartels, founder and CEO of Mogale. "Cultivated meat is destined to play a significant role in conserving biodiversity and wildlife species in Africa and beyond.”
Approximately 13 million people across Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia face severe hunger and, over the course of 2022, 15-20 million people in those three countries could face serious food insecurity, CULT noted.
“The Mogale team is further working on prototyping a unique, modular, plug-and-play production plant that will allow cultivated meat to be made in specific locations, which will not only provide the people across Africa with affordable and nutritional animal protein but do so in a way that conserves the continent’s precious wildlife and biodiversity,” the company said, adding that Mogale is taking steps to complete these goals which CULT is proud to support in its quest to help solve the global food crisis.
“We are thrilled for Mogale Meat and its accomplishments thus far, and we look forward to it continuing to blossom in the cellular agriculture industry and beyond,” Gafour added.
CULT is an innovative investment platform with an exclusive focus on cellular agriculture that is advancing the development of novel technologies to provide a sustainable, environmental, and ethical solution to the global factory farming crisis.
Contact the author at jon.hopkins@proactiveinvestors.com