Memphis Meats, a new meat-production startup, is one of a group of companies working to grow meat in labs.
The Memphis Daily News reports that the company uses the cells of cows, pigs and chickens as building blocks to grow products like burgers and meatballs in a lab setting. The co-founders include Will Clem, a biomedical engineer whose family owns the Baby Jack’s restaurant chain.
The global debut of Memphis Meats came earlier this month in San Francisco, when the founders made a presentation to investors at the biotech accelerator Indie Bio. Memphis Meats CEO Uma Valeti says the company wants to get products on the market by 2021.
Valeti says Memphis Meats will do for animal agriculture “what the car did to the horse and buggy.”
