---
title: "These Startups Want to Feed You Lab-Grown Giraffe, Elephant Meat"
description: "The companies developing lab-grown meat won’t stop at just beef and chicken — they’ll likely cultivate exotic meats, too."
date: "2019-10-24"
modified: "2019-10-24"
authors:
  - name: "Kristin Houser"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/kristin"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/startups-feed-you-lab-grown-meat-giraffe-elephant"
categories:
  - "Future Society"
tags:
  - "cultivated meat"
  - "food"
  - "lab grown meat"
  - "the digest"
---

# These Startups Want to Feed You Lab-Grown Giraffe, Elephant Meat

![The companies developing lab-grown meat won’t stop at just beef and chicken — they’ll likely cultivate exotic meats, too.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/lab-grown-giraffe-elephant-meat.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

## Meat Market

Most of the non-fish meat the world eats comes from three sources: cows, chickens, and pigs.

But now that scientists are starting to figure out how to [grow meat from stem cells](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/lab-grown-steak-aleph-farms>) in the lab — no killing of animals required — startups are looking forward to the day when they can serve up all sorts of currently taboo meats, from giraffe and elephant to [dinosaur](<https://synbiobeta.com/synthetic-biologys-latest-unicorn-mammuty-closes-100m-series-a-for-cell-based-meats-from-extinct-animals/>) and even [human](<https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kbz8ky/the-guy-who-want-to-sell-you-salami-made-out-of-james-franco-are-100-serious>).

## Noah's Noms

VOW Foods' current focus is on [growing kangaroo meat](<https://www.wsj.com/articles/lab-grown-kangaroo-meat-its-whats-for-dinner-11565269200>), but a fascinating new *Inverse* [story](<https://www.inverse.com/article/60396-lab-grown-meat>) looks at how the startup eventually hopes to create a modern "Noah's Ark" — except instead of collecting actual animals, it would build a library of their cells for meat cultivation.

"Nature has incredible diversity so there is great potential to create new food experiences," co-founder George Peppou recently said a [press release](<https://www.treasury.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-08/20190816%20-%20Media%20Release%20-%20NSW%20Treasury%20-%20Western%20Sydney%20puts%20lab%20grown%20meat%20on%20the%20menu.pdf>). "Our cell library will discover and catalogue new flavor, texture, and nutritional profiles that we can also combine to create amazing new food experiences."

## Fresh Flavors

Animal welfare and ethics professor James Serpell predicts that people might even be more eager to eat lab-grown versions of exotic meats than ones they're familiar with.

"Paradoxically, it may be easier to get people to eat lab-grown exotic flesh than lab-grown beef," he told *Inverse*. "Lab-grown beef may not live up to the reality of real beef, where if it’s something people have no expectations of, they may just want to try it. It’s a very unpredictable scenario."

**READ MORE:** [Lab-grown meat also creates an unexpected benefit: Ethical zebra burgers](<https://www.inverse.com/article/60396-lab-grown-meat>) \[*Inverse*\]

**More on lab-grown meat:** *[For the First Time, a Startup Grew a Steak in a Lab](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/lab-grown-steak-aleph-farms>)*

### Author social links  
[LinkedIn](<https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinjhouser>)