Pet Food

Along with the recent bridge funding, Bond Pet Foods is claiming to have created the world’s first animal-free, cultured chicken meat protein for pet food applications. Using what it says is proprietary technology, the startup takes a harmless, one-time blood sample — in this case, from a heritage hen named Inga who is alive and well at a farm in Lindsborg, Kansas — to determine the genetic code for the best types of chicken proteins to nourish dogs and cats.

Would you feel better tucking into a juicy steak knowing that the cow it comes from is still happily living out its life in a field somewhere? Biotechnology could make that possible. Manuela Saragosa hears from Shannon Falconer at pet food maker Because Animals, who grows real meat in a lab. Jon McIntyre at Motif FoodWorks explains how new technology has made his plant-based products tastier. We also hear from Tony Seba at the think tank, Rethink X. He believes we'll be designing food like software in the future.

Bond Pet Foods has developed the world’s first animal-free chicken protein for dog and cat nutrition using precision fermentation. “The successful chicken prototype is a demonstration of our technology’s potential to create a complete portfolio of animal proteins for pet consumption, and beyond,” said Bond Co-Founder and CTO Pernilla Turner Audibert. The Colorado-based company has also closed a bridge round of funding with follow-on from seed investors Lever VC and KBW Ventures, and new funds Stage 1 Fund and Trellis Road participating. Its first chicken-based products will debut in 2023.

In bioreactors around the world, animal cells are proliferating, on their way to becoming meat and seafood that we might someday consume without killing any animals.

Pet food might be the underdog of lab-grown meat, but Bond Pet Foods and Because Animals say the chances of scientific success and consumer acceptance increase when the stakes are lowered. Rich Kelleman’s path to animal-free pet food started at Burger King, of all places.