
CANBERRA, July 30 -- Australia's laboratory-grown meat company has emerged in the nation's capital city with the goal of solving the industry's mass production predicament.
According to the report of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Tuesday, two Australian companies, Heuros in Canberra and VOW in Sydney, are aiming to make meat grown from animal stem cells in a laboratory a commercial reality.
"At the moment we are the first company to emerge (in Australia)," said Nick Beaumont, the founder of Heuros. "I think there are others that are operating in stealth, but they haven't shown their hand yet."
While companies all over the world but mostly in Europe and California's Silicon Valley have been able to create lab-grown meat, none have yet figured out how to scale-up production to the point where it can be sold commercially.
Beaumont said that Heuros is attempting to solve the problem and make the product affordable.
"We have made a lot of progress," he said. "We could maybe supply the material to make a burger-sized piece of meat for 30 to 40 Australian dollars (20.7 to 27.6 U.S. dollars), so we are close but it is not quite comparable to the cost of traditional meat yet."
"The more we produce, there will be economies of scale and hopefully we can improve the price of the product."
Beaumont recently traveled to the United States where he spoke about his company at a meeting of 150 leaders in the cellular agriculture industry.
"There's so much opportunity here for Australia to carry on producing meat for export and for the home market," he told the ABC.
"We are not using genetic modification, we are not using recombinant proteins," he said. "We are not using antibiotics or steroids. We think this will be a lot more appealing to the consumer."
Fire brigade in Shanghai holds group wedding
Tourists enjoy ice sculptures in Datan Town, north China
Sunset scenery of Dayan Pagoda in Xi'an
Tourists have fun at scenic spot in Nanlong Town, NW China
Harbin attracts tourists by making best use of ice in winter
In pics: FIS Alpine Ski Women's World Cup Slalom
Black-necked cranes rest at reservoir in Lhunzhub County, Lhasa
China's FAST telescope will be available to foreign scientists in April
"She power" plays indispensable role in poverty alleviation
Top 10 world news events of People's Daily in 2020
Top 10 China news events of People's Daily in 2020
Top 10 media buzzwords of 2020
Year-ender:10 major tourism stories of 2020
No interference in Venezuelan issues
Biz prepares for trade spat
Broadcasting Continent
Australia wins Chinese CEOs as US loses