How About $2,000 a Pound?

And you thought you paid a lot for your Thanksgiving turkey. From RealClearFuture:

This Thanksgiving, Paul Mozdziak will be giving thanks that people are finally paying attention to his big idea.

He wants to grow turkey meat in 5,000-gallon tanks.

Mozdziak is an expert in growing avian muscle cells in a lab flask. That obscure corner of research recently landed the North Carolina State University professor of poultry science at the cutting-edge of “cellular agriculture,” or the idea that animal protein could be manufactured in bioreactors rather than by animals.

The technology, also known as in vitro meat cultivation, may sound strange. But it has been drawing a following of environmentalists, animal-rights activists, and investors who think meat can be made by biotech companies rather than on farms.

and

Lab-grown meat is still far from being economical. In Mozdziak’s lab, his team grows cells as a thin layer inside plastic flasks. If the cells become too thick, nutrients can’t get in. Growing a turkey-size amount of white meat this way would require about 11,340 flasks and about $34,000 worth of growth serum.

My back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that translates into about $2,000 a pound.

So, think of the bargain you got when you cut into your Thanksgiving turkey today.