Mark Post's mission: cultured meat

Mark Post is a man on a mission. The environmental damage caused by livestock farming is far too great and must be dramatically reduced. His contribution? Cultured meat. These days, he’s not just a scientist, but also the director of Mosa Meat, a business that has drawn 75 million Euros in investments. And no, he’s not a vegetarian.

In front of the entrance to Mosa Meat at a business park in Maastricht, employees enjoy their lunch together, most of whom are young academics with a master’s degree or PhD. There are 65 people on staff, and the other 35 positions are in development, purchasing and HR. “It’s like a real company,” jokes Chief Scientific Officer Post, who founded Mosa Meat in 2015 with food technologist Peter Verstrate. On December 5, 2013, they presented the first hamburger made from cultured meat in London: a snack worth 250,000 Euros.

International

Aside from being a large organization, Mosa Meat is now also international, with 23 nationalities represented at the company. “We have no trouble finding people. Someone from Madrid doesn’t care if you’re based in Maastricht, Eindhoven or Amsterdam. Maastricht is convenient for me because I like to cycle to work, and don’t want to move. Even though it all started here at the university and at Brightlands Maastricht Health Campus, the proximity of the institution becomes less important as the company grows and develops its own capacity to research certain things. We now have our own laboratory, for example. This company could exist anywhere, but we would like to keep it here at Brightlands.”

Read more on the Brightlands website.