Would you eat meat grown in stainless-steel tanks?

Vow’s foie gras is, technically, meat. But it wasn’t made with an animal. And it isn’t yet legal in Australia.

The product, which the Sydney start-up promotes as Forged Gras, comes not from a farm but from factories in the Sydney suburb of Alexandria, and is made with the cells of Japanese quail.

Vow CEO George Peppou has been poaching engineers from Elon Musk’s SpaceX to help build towards his lofty goal.Credit: SMH

Forged Gras this week launched in high-end restaurants across Hong Kong and Singapore, an early milestone in Vow’s audacious bid to become the world’s most valuable meat company.

“This is something that has never existed in the world before,” Vow co-founder and chief executive George Peppou says.

“Our goal is for diners to see forged gras on menus at top-tier restaurants, not as an alternative protein but as an exciting new meat product for meat eaters.

“We’re using cell-culture technology to create products that animals and traditional farming could never produce.”

Many Australians have probably never tried foie gras, a French delicacy typically made of the liver of a duck or goose. Its production has been heavily criticised for animal welfare concerns about cases of force-feeding, with the process enlarging the duck or goose liver to about 10 times its usual volume.

Not in Vow’s case. Its cultured foie gras is produced in stainless-steel tanks at its Sydney facilities, which Peppou likens to a brewery. Quail cells are grown in a nutrient-rich liquid, and the cells then multiply before being harvested and transformed into meat that is not only edible but “luxurious, fatty and melt-in-your-mouth”, Peppou says.

Forged parfait atop a Hokkaido wagyu sando at Mori.Credit:

Vow is the only company in the world now actively selling cultured meat, but there are more than 150 companies globally vying for what is shaping up as a highly lucrative market. Peppou says Vow is ahead of the pack, despite raising a fraction of the capital of its competitors. The start-up has raised about $US50 million ($76.7 million) from heavyweight Australian investors including Hostplus, Blackbird, Square Peg and the family office of Atlassian billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes.

Peppou has also been poaching engineers from Elon Musk’s SpaceX to build towards his lofty goal. “Our aim is to build one of the largest food companies in history,” he says.

To get there, Peppou is taking a leaf – or maybe a quail feather – out of Tesla’s book on how to scale up.

Vow’s initial focus is on premium, chef-driven menus, and its vision for the future is one in which cultured meat becomes accessible to everyday consumers.

But it is deliberately not trying to replicate meat products and formats already available to consumers. Its Forged Parfait is made with 60 per cent cultured Japanese quail, blended with ingredients including garlic, onion, brandy and butter. Vow also made headlines last year for its woolly mammoth meatballs, although no human can eat them, given their cells are 1000 years old.

“The ultimate goal isn’t just replacing traditional meats but creating something entirely new,” Peppou says.

“Imagine a steak that tastes like venison but has the nutritional profile of salmon. That’s the kind of innovation we’re working toward.”

But first, it wants to get its products into Australian restaurants. The company has yet to finalise its local regulatory approvals, which may come in 2025 if everything goes to plan.

Winning over regulators is one thing, but what about consumers? Peppou says definitively that consumers are ready for Vow’s novel meat products, particularly in high-end restaurants where there’s a strong appetite to try new things. Vow also isn’t trying to win over vegetarians or vegans with its products, given the use of animal cells, but it is trying ultimately to reduce the global reliance on factory farming, which is responsible for significant carbon emissions.

“Take something like the Impossible burger. Who is it for?” Peppou asks. “It’s a technically impressive product, but if I eat meat I’m going to eat a beef burger, and if I’m a vegan I’m going to eat tofu.

“My core philosophy is: if I’m going to change the behaviour of people like me, the only way to do that is through a product people will choose selfishly.”

Peppou says Vow’s production system is the most efficient and extensive operation in the cultured meat industry. The start-up has grown to a headcount of 100, most of whom are in Sydney. One of those is Ines Lizaur, previously an engineer for SpaceX, who moved from the US to Sydney to join Vow as its head of manufacturing.

George Peppou, the founder and CEO of Vow, with Ines Lizaur, its head of manufacturing.Credit: AFR

“The team is solving problems that have never been solved before, with solutions that have global impact, exactly like SpaceX,” Lizaur said.

“It’s a group of talented and hard-working engineers trying to answer the question: how do you design, build, operate and scale a technology for the first time, with a fraction of the resources you would have at a large company.

“It’s that scrappiness and drive that make SpaceX and Vow so similar – and notably different from other companies. That, combined with the idea of going for a swim at Bondi every morning before I go into Vow to build bioreactors, sounded pretty appealing.”

Cultured Japanese quail sounded pretty appealing to chef Masa Takayama, the owner of Masa, a three-Michelin-star Japanese and sushi restaurant in New York.

Takayama says he’s always looking for innovative foods and methods to add to his repertoire. Vow hasn’t yet received its US approvals, but the start-up recently hosted an event for journalists, who were required to sign waivers to try its meat.

Blackbird Ventures partner Samantha Wong.Credit: Kate Geraghty

“I was very intrigued to know more about Forged Gras and the process it took to create it,” the chef says. “It was fun for my team to come up with dishes that could highlight its nuanced flavour ... I look forward to seeing its success in the marketplace.”

Venture capital funds such as Blackbird, which cut Vow’s first cheques, are hopeful the start-up can grow into another Australian success story like Canva, Atlassian or Airwallex. Peppou says he’s received valuable mentorship from Blackbird’s chair, Robyn Denholm, who also chairs Tesla. Blackbird partner Samantha Wong says Vow’s approach of engaging early with regulators and chefs helped its momentum.

“A bet on Vow is not a bet on ‘meat-free’ replicas but a bet that people want to eat more delicious, nutritious food than they do today,” Wong says.

“Science has always brought forward new categories in food. Vow has made use of machine learning, robotics and advances in biology to create entirely new foods and winning over the harshest of critics – Michelin-grade restaurant chefs at global gastronomy capitals like Singapore and Hong Kong.

“I don’t think that would have been possible if the only thing going for the product was that animals weren’t involved in its slaughter. Vow has genuinely created a novel, delicious product that people love. With billions of people requiring protein several times a day, that is an enormous market to go after.

“If this goes really right, Vow becomes the most valuable meat company in the world.”

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