Fancy a burger made from meat grown in a laboratory? Lab-burgers are coming to a supermarket or restaurant near you soon and are going to be big business, predicts entrepreneur and author Paul Cuatrecasas.
“The next major revolution–on a scale with moving from the horse and cart to the automobile–is going to be in food,” says Cuatrecasas, CEO of mergers and acquisitions and strategic advisory firm Aquaa Partners.
It’s certainly a bold statement, but not hyperbolic. Cuatrecasas has form in spotting market disruptors, as he details in his book Go Tech or Go Extinct. Agriculture and farming are on the cusp of major change, he predicts, with urban agriculture, including the likes of vertical agriculture, underground farming and hydroponics, poised to flourish. And there’s one area he’s particularly bullish on: “The biggest thing will be the development of cultured meat.”
He’s not the only one to reach that conclusion, of course, as anyone who’s read Paul Shapiro’s best-selling 2018 book Clean Meat will know. (The clue’s in the subtitle: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner And The World.)