You can now buy lab-grown foie gras.

At a higher level Last week at a sushi bar in New York, a smorgasbord of media and policy types surrounded menus of sushi rolls, Peking Duck tapas, and mushroom salad. But what made this menu extraordinary was one ingredient that permeated the dishes – foie gras made from quail cells produced in a bioreactor. The event, hosted by sushi chef Masa Takayama, was a launch party for Australian farmed meat firm Wu, which will sell its foie gras in a handful of restaurants in Singapore and Hong Kong.

The food was decadent — one course featured a mountain of black truffle — but that was mostly the point. Waugh and CEO George Pepeau are positioning farmed meat as a luxury product — an unusual positioning for an industry where many founders are motivated by animal welfare and mass-produced meat. Go toe-to-toe with meat to be done. But while growing meat in the lab is still eye-wateringly expensive, Pipo is trying to turn the industry’s Achilles heel to its advantage.

“I feel like the death knell for our industry has already been written,” he says. “But just because Californians can’t do anything, doesn’t mean nothing can be done.”

That something is turning cultured meat into profit. One of the biggest challenges facing the industry – along with restrictions and a lack of venture capital cash – is that growing animal cells in bioreactors is very expensive. Reliable figures are hard to come by, but a research paper with data provided by companies in 2021 estimated the cost of farmed beef to be between $10,000 and $68 per pound, depending on production methods. Many startups say they have drastically reduced production costs since their early experiments, but prices are still higher than factory-farmed chicken at around $2.67 per pound.

Two of the best-funded startups in the space — Eat Just and Upside Foods — have both launched farmed chicken products. But Pipo, who leans on his reputation as a provocateur in the industry, says that approach doesn’t make sense. “Making chicken was always a scary idea,” he says.

Farmed meat basics are expensive. Growing animal cells outside of their bodies is usually the business of medical researchers and pharmaceutical companies. Animal cells grown in culture are used to make vaccines and drugs, which are sold in small quantities at exorbitant prices. The cultured meat industry needs certain ingredients to grow the cells it wants to sell as meat, but unlike pharma. industry, it needs to increase sales volume and sell at grocery store prices.