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For those who don't know CAN, it is a non-profit foundation that supports the cell ag community in the Netherlands. Following its initial success raising funds from the Dutch government for education, research and innovation, it was instrumental in getting the government to allow tastings of cultured meat prototypes, and supports the safety review process behind them. Most recently, CAN announced the opening of two open-access, scale up facilities, one in Maastricht for cultured meat (run by Cultivate at Scale, a Mosa Meat spinoff) and another in Ede for precision fermentation (run by the Biotechnology Fermentation Factory (BFF), supported by NIZO).
The theme of the evening was empowering the cell ag community. Ira introduced her personal journey into cell ag via her father's work (Willem van Eelen, a CM pioneer and owner of the first patent for CM) as well as her own efforts building up the Netherlands community that exists today... not to mention how the cultured meat boat got its name. Then Ronald Visschers, the new director of CAN, introduced the foundation and appealed to everyone working in cell ag to reject the forces stoking division in Europe, to work together across borders. An important message for these times!
I want to thank Ira, Ronald, and CAN for the wonderful evening, and I look forward to working with them as part of New Harvest (full disclosure, New Harvest is a part of the CAN community) and projects like FEASTS.
Given the theme of community and working across borders, I want to end by acknowledging all of the national cell ag groups who are part of FEASTS (CellAgri Portugal, Cell Ag Italy, Cell Ag Germany, Cellular Agriculture Greece, and Institut Proteus (formerly Agriculture Cellulaire France). They are building communities within their own nations, as well as catalyzing work globally, having recently announced formation of the NCA, an international network of cell ag non-profits.
People looking for more information about cell ag, whether to start their journey or expand it, should contact NCA or their national level cell ag group. A non-exhaustive map of various cell ag groups around the world can be found here.
Thank you all!
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