SAN FRANCISCO & CHICAGO–Eat Just, Inc., a company that applies cutting-edge science and technology on a mission to create healthier, more sustainable foods, announced today that its GOOD Meat division has entered into a joint development agreement with ADM, an international leader in nutrition that powers many of the world’s top food, beverage, health and wellness brands. This is ADM’s first strategic partnership of its kind in the cultivated meat sector, which analysts predict could become a $25 billion global industry by 2030.1
GOOD Meat created the world’s first real, high-quality meat made directly from animal cells that has been approved for commercial sale, and the company is accelerating research and development and increasing production capacity to meet customer demand in Singapore and future markets. ADM’s unparalleled capabilities across every part of the global food chain, including human and animal nutrition, establishes an important pathway to large-scale commercialization of GOOD Meat’s products.
As part of the agreement, ADM will build upon GOOD Meat’s foundational work to optimize the nutrients needed to enable the growth of the cells. In the same way a chicken or a cow absorbs amino acids, vitamins, and fat through consuming soy and corn, GOOD Meat’s cells require an optimal growth medium for quality, cost and volume. It’s a 21st-century extension of what ADM has done for decades in conventional animal agriculture by supplying the industry with superior livestock feed, supplements, and other ingredients for health and wellbeing.
The companies will also collaborate on product development projects for GOOD Meat’s pioneering cultivated meat products, starting with chicken. ADM’s breadth, depth, and insights in food formulation will be leveraged to advance the flavor, texture and other attributes of GOOD Meat’s pipeline of cultivated meat products.
“ADM has been making and innovating in food over 120 years. We are proud to partner with their incredibly talented team of scientists and engineers to take cultivated meat from a few restaurants today to millions of consumers tomorrow,” said Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just.
“ADM has long been a pioneer in the alternative protein industry, and our strategic focus right now is on developing innovative new technology and solutions to continue expanding our capabilities to serve the fast-growing global demand for protein-based nutritional needs,” said Leticia Gonçalves, ADM’s president, Global Foods. “Cultivated meat solutions have an exciting role to play in this space, and we are eager to work together with GOOD Meat to bring great-tasting, innovative cultivated meat products to the Singapore market and beyond.”
Today’s announcement follows the release of ADM’s 2022 Alternative Protein Outlook, which revealed what’s next for protein alternatives. The report highlighted, among other advancements, the movement toward price parity of cultivated meat products with their conventional counterparts. Partnerships between startups like GOOD Meat and established industry leaders like ADM can help expedite that process and bring more protein options to consumers faster. Since 2018, GOOD Meat has achieved a 90% reduction in total costs when operating in a built-for-purpose plant.
GOOD Meat’s partnership with ADM ushers in an exciting growth period as the company builds upon its recent regulatory approval in Singapore to sell new types of cultivated chicken and curates new opportunities for consumers to enjoy those products in a variety of settings. The company continues to hire top scientific, engineering and manufacturing talent in the United States and Singapore as it works with its partners to design and manufacture the infrastructure necessary to enable significant increases in cultivated meat production capacity.
Guggenheim Securities served as the financial advisor to GOOD Meat for the ADM transaction.
1 McKinsey & Company, “Cultivated meat: Out of the lab, into the frying pan,” June 2021
About Eat Just, Inc.
Eat Just is a food technology company with a mission to build a healthier, safer and more sustainable food system in our lifetimes. The company’s expertise, from functionalizing plant proteins to culturing animal cells, is powered by a world-class team of scientists and chefs spanning more than a dozen research disciplines. Eat Just created America’s fastest-growing egg brand, which is made entirely of plants, and the world’s first-to-market meat made from animal cells instead of slaughtered livestock. The company has been recognized as one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Companies,” Entrepreneur’s “100 Brilliant Companies,” CNBC’s “Disruptor 50” and a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer. JUST Egg has been named among Popular Science’s “100 Greatest Innovations” and Fast Company’s “World Changing Ideas” and the history-making debut of GOOD Meat was heralded as one of 2020’s top scientific breakthroughs by The Guardian, Vox and WIRED.
For more information on JUST Egg, visit https://ju.st.
For more information on GOOD Meat, visit http://goodmeat.co.
About ADM
ADM unlocks the power of nature to enrich the quality of life. We’re a premier global human and animal nutrition company, delivering solutions today with an eye to the future. We’re blazing new trails in health and well-being as our scientists develop groundbreaking products to support healthier living. We’re a cutting-edge innovator leading the way to a new future of plant-based consumer and industrial solutions to replace petroleum-based products. We’re an unmatched agricultural supply chain manager and processor, providing food security by connecting local needs with global capabilities. And we’re a leader in sustainability, scaling across entire value chains to help decarbonize our industry and safeguard our planet. From the seed of the idea to the outcome of the solution, we give customers an edge in solving the nutritional and sustainability challenges of today and tomorrow. Learn more at www.adm.com.
