South African company Mzansi Meat has launched Africa’s first cultivated meat burger, renewing the focus on the link between our favourite nosh and climate change, growing populations and zoonotic diseases.
You enter the building from the busy street, ears ringing with the sound of hooting and the rumbling of eternal construction and traffic. Though it’s only a few metres from all this hubbub, the BioCiti labs in Cape Town’s Woodstock Exchange feel a world away, quiet except for the hum of machines. Not only is BioCiti labs’ location surprising, so is what’s being created inside.
At Mzansi Meat, science is trying to match our lust for lunch, our hunger for the hamburger – but without the challenges and negative climatic impacts of ordinary food systems. Chief financial officer Tasneem Karodia spoke to DM168 from the company’s office and laboratory.
