How investors are betting on foie gras grown from cells in the lab

Others had doubts. Marco Moreira, chef and owner of 15 East Restaurant in Tocqueville, New York, said he was skeptical.

said Mr. Moreira, who has many dishes containing foie gras in his list. “Why mess with something as perfect as it is?” However, he said he is open to his experience.

Investors have poured money into food technology startups in recent years amid concerns about food shortages in the coming decades as the world’s population grows. Cell-grown meat does not yet have regulatory approval in most countries, but last year, For the first time in the laboratory meat industry, a San Francisco company, Eat Just, has been given government approval by the City of Singapore to sell cultured chicken as an ingredient in chicken nuggets.

One of the biggest obstacles to cell-grown meat is its cost. Mr. Maureen Forrest says Gourmey’s lab-grown foie gras costs less than $1,180 (€1,000) per kilogram. Goose liver, made in the traditional way, costs about 100 euros to 200 euros per kilogram.

The European Commission and France’s public bank, Bpifrance, have also provided subsidies to support Gourmey, which started in 2019 and has about 20 employees.

Mr. Maureen Forrest said Gourmey has been seeking regulatory approval from food safety agencies and hopes to enter the market by late next year or early 2023. Its focus will be on markets such as Singapore and the United States, where there is increasing acceptance of lab-grown meat, he said.

Stephane Chambon, Head Chef at Oise BridgeA Michelin-starred restaurant in southwest France known for its foie gras said the movement against foie gras for animal rights reasons was misleading and that the process of raising ducks or geese for foie gras by overfeeding them was natural: Centuries ago. When geese and ducks cross the Mediterranean from Egypt, he said, they eat a lot for energy, causing their livers to congest.