The Three Young Founders Looking at Food Tech’s Dark Age in a New LightThe Three Young Founders Looking at Food Tech’s Dark Age in a New LightArt by Clark Miller
The Big Read

The Three Young Founders Looking at Food Tech’s Dark Age in a New Light

Investors have largely lost their hunger for new-age food and lab-grown meat startups. Except for Prolific Machines, which has fresh funding and a plan to commercialize technology for growing cells using little more than an LED lamp.

By
Larissa Zimberoff

A few weeks ago, at a former jellybean factory in Emeryville, California, I tasted what may be the future of food: the lab-grown, or cultured, meat produced by Prolific Machines, a four-year-old startup that has been operating in secret while it develops its technology.

“Last night, I worried what you were going to think,” admitted cofounder Declan Jones, 30, a funny Englishman clad in a purple tie-dyed Alice Coltrane t-shirt. The vibe matched the tattoos covering his arms. He and his Dutch cofounder, Max Huisman, 34, watched as Ian Ronningen, the startup’s head of product innovation and analytical chemistry, carried over a hot pan with an oven mitt. Delicately, he placed two meatballs atop a wooden board next to ovals of mayo and chili crunch.