Biotech Wants Vegetarians to Eat Its Peas Spliced With Beef DNA

Bloomberg
2024-10-17

(Bloomberg) -- Moolec Science SA is eyeing the vegetarian market after getting US planting clearance for its beef-infused peas, though it may be years before the genetically modified product finds its way to grocery shelves.

The legumes spliced with beef DNA, which received a green light from the US Department of Agriculture last month, would be the first GMO pea to come to market, said Gaston Paladini, chief executive officer of Moolec.

Paladini, an Argentine meatpacking heir, said he is already in talks with international consumer packaged goods companies that could one day can and sell the peas.

The US Food and Drug Administration still needs to approve Moolec’s GMO peas for consumption, and even then it would take years to bring them to market. But the biggest challenge may be persuading people to eat the peas. 

Moolec originally planned for the peas — much like its signature pork-infused soybeans — to be an ingredient for hamburgers and sausages. But now it intends to target vegetarians seeking iron-rich replacements for beef. The difficulty comes in convincing them they aren’t in fact consuming beef.

“Moolec’s technology doesn’t involve any procedures with animals — none,” Paladini said in an Oct. 15 interview. “We don’t take cells from the animal and multiply them. It’s a fully synthetic genetic code that we buy in a DNA bank. We are tweaking nature.”

In addition, there is still consumer resistance to directly ingesting GMO fruits and vegetables — though there are already several products on the market, like squash and pineapples.

Paladini is undaunted by the hurdles. “The most attractive thing about this product is the business-to-consumer market, the iron-fortified peas on their own in a can,” he said.

Meanwhile, Moolec is currently harvesting its pork-infused soybeans in the US, which it will use as samples for potential customers, to gather information for a separate FDA application, and to grow its breeding program. It believes the beans, which have a pink hue, will be attractive to processed-meat companies looking to cut their carbon footprint from livestock methane emissions.

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.

免責聲明:投資有風險,本文並非投資建議,以上內容不應被視為任何金融產品的購買或出售要約、建議或邀請,作者或其他用戶的任何相關討論、評論或帖子也不應被視為此類內容。本文僅供一般參考,不考慮您的個人投資目標、財務狀況或需求。TTM對信息的準確性和完整性不承擔任何責任或保證,投資者應自行研究並在投資前尋求專業建議。

熱議股票

  1. 1
     
     
     
     
  2. 2
     
     
     
     
  3. 3
     
     
     
     
  4. 4
     
     
     
     
  5. 5
     
     
     
     
  6. 6
     
     
     
     
  7. 7
     
     
     
     
  8. 8
     
     
     
     
  9. 9
     
     
     
     
  10. 10