CellX Opens Chinese Cultivated Meat Pilot Factory
17 August 2023
Agronomics Limited
("Agronomics" or the "Company")
Portfolio Company CellX Opens China's First Cultivated Meat Pilot Factory
Agronomics (ANIC:LSE), the leading listed company focused on the field of cellular agriculture, is pleased to announce that Shanghai based portfolio company CellX Limited ("CellX"), has inaugurated China's first cultivated meat pilot factory, setting the stage for an anticipated commercial launch by 2025.
The completion of the large-scale facility, Future Food Factory X, follows the firm's strategic partnership with food manufacturing specialists Shanghai Tofflon Science and Technology Co., Ltd. announced in February 2023 and the successful US$ 6.5 million Series A+ financing announced in June 2023.
Having introduced its cell-cultured pork to samplers back in 2021, CellX is in the process of applying for regulatory approval in both Singapore and the US, with the aim to launch by 2025.
The pilot plant uses proprietary cell cultivation technology and operates with fully digitalised intelligent management systems. As China's first "transparent food space" for cultivated meat, CellX integrates technology research and development, pilot production, and interactive consumer experiences at the new facility. Consumers are now able to sample products made from cultivated meat at the plant.
CellX will look to target the high-end market, with further plans to introduce mass-market products as it continues to scale up and reduce costs in the future. The materially lower cost of bioreactors compared to the US and Europe, combined with the Chinese government's incentives for cultivated meat as part of its five-year plan, is expected to contribute to the efforts to lower prices.
Agronomics has invested a total of US$ 2.05 million in CellX since its inception in 2020 and has an equity ownership of 4.98% on a fully diluted basis.
About CellX
CellX is a cellular agriculture company based in Shanghai, working to bring cultivated meat products to consumers in China and around the world. Its goal is to provide a sustainable source of animal protein, better health for all human beings, and improved animal welfare. Founded in 2020, CellX has built a top R&D team of 40 and focuses on building platform technologies with a multi-species approach.
CellX is collaborating with top universities and leading companies around the world to advance the commercialisation of cultivated meat. The company is also accelerating market launch and cultivated meat approval in the APAC region.
More information at www.cellx.cn
About Agronomics
Agronomics is the leading listed venture capital firm with a focus on cellular agriculture. The Company has established a portfolio of over 20 companies at the Pre-Seed to Series C stage in this rapidly advancing sector. It seeks to secure minority stakes in companies owning technologies with defensible intellectual property that offer new ways of producing food and materials with a focus on products historically derived from animals. These technologies are driving a major disruption in agriculture, offering solutions to improve sustainability, as well as addressing human health, animal welfare and environmental damage. This disruption will decouple supply chains from the environment and animals, as well as being fundamental to feeding the world's expanding population.
About Cellular Agriculture
Cellular Agriculture is the production of agriculture products directly from cells, as opposed to raising an animal for slaughter or growing crops. This encompasses cell culture to produce cultivated meat and materials, and fermentation processes that harness a combination of molecular biology, synthetic biology, tissue engineering and biotechnology to massively simplify production methods in a sustainable manner.
Over the coming decades, the source of the world's food supply traditionally derived from conventional agriculture is going to change dramatically. We have already witnessed the first wave of this shift with the consumer adoption of plant-based alternative proteins but today, we are on the cusp of an even bigger wave of change. This is being facilitated by advances in cellular agriculture. This change is necessary, given scientists' claims that if we maintain existing animal protein consumption patterns, then we will not meet the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting warming to 1.5℃.
AT Kearney, a global consultancy firm, projects that cultivated meat's market share will reach 35% by 2040. This combined with the Good Food Institute's estimate that a US $1.8 trillion investment will be required in order to produce just 10% of the world's protein using this technology, means that we are on the cusp of a multi-decade flow of capital to build out manufacturing facilities. Funding in the field of cellular agriculture is accelerating, however, still, less than US$ 5 billion has been invested worldwide since the industry's inception in 2016.
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