Mission Barns

One name has kept creeping into my timeline in recent days and weeks: a company that recently received a 'no questions' letter from the FDA for its cultivated pork fat. This letter indicates that the agency has reviewed a safety assessment of its product and has no further concerns or objections regarding its intended use. This does not mean the FDA has explicitly approved the product, but rather that the company has provided sufficient evidence to demonstrate its safety for consumption based on existing regulatory frameworks.

In the coming months Mission Barns plans to introduce meatballs and applewood-smoked bacon made with its cultivated pork fat. These products will be available at San Francisco's Fiorella restaurant and select Sprouts Farmers Market locations. But who exactly are Mission Barns, where did they come from, and where are they headed?

Origins

Mission Barns was founded in 2018 by Eitan Fischer (formerly Director of Cellular Agriculture at Eat Just) and co-founder David Bowman ('A game-changer for the alternative meat sector…' Mission Barns raises $24m to scale up cell-cultured fat tech, build pilot plant ) (Mission Barns To Start Taste Tests Of Its Cell-Based Bacon & Pork Fat). The startup began in Berkeley, California, to cultivate animal cells to produce meat without requiring livestock farming or slaughter (Added to portfolio: Mission Barns, Capital V). In its early development, Mission Barns zeroed in on pork fat as a flavour, branding its lab-grown fat as "Mission Fat." By mid-2020, the company had developed a prototype for cell-cultured bacon and even organised one of the world's first public tastings of lab-grown meat. Dozens of Bay Area consumers were selected to sample bacon made from real pork fat cells grown in bioreactors, all with no animal slaughter (Mission Barns Will Now Let the Public Try Their New Cultured Bacon - Perishable News). This early cultured bacon taste test helped validate the concept. It demonstrated that real animal fat grown outside an animal could deliver the familiar pork flavour.

Current Business Activities

Product Offerings

Mission Barns produces cultivated pork fat (Mission Fat™) blended with plant-based ingredients to create hybrid meat products. Its lineup includes:

Bacon: Cultivated pork fat strips combined with plant protein for traditional crispness and aroma.
Meatballs: Italian-style, pea protein-based meatballs enhanced with Mission Fat.
Pepperoni: A pea and fava bean protein mix infused with cultured fat for a zesty flavour.
Chorizo & Sausage: Spiced ground pork alternatives featuring Mission Fat for authentic texture and taste.

These hybrids offer the taste and mouthfeel of pork fat with the health and sustainability benefits of plant-based protein. Mission Barns' products have shown strong consumer preference for free from antibiotics and GMOs, with over 90% of blind taste test participants favouring their hybrid meats over traditional plant-based alternatives. A pilot-scale production run of chorizo sausage marked the first large-batch manufacturing of a cultivated meat product.

Market Presence & Partnerships

Mission Barns primarily operates as a B2B ingredient supplier but is expanding into direct consumer sales. It partnered with Silva Sausage Co. to scale production, utilising Silva's processing facility to manufacture hybrid sausages. The partnership demonstrated the feasibility of commercial-scale cultivated fat production.

Following FDA approval in early 2025 for its cultivated pork fat, the first approval for pork fat and only the third for any cultivated meat in the U.S., Mission Barns is preparing for a limited market launch. Initial retail and restaurant partnerships include:

Fiorella (San Francisco): Offering Mission Fat-based dishes like meatball appetisers and applewood-smoked bacon.
Sprouts Farmers Market: Carrying Mission Barns' meatball products in select locations.
Berkeley Bowl: Expected to stock hybrid products in the Bay Area.

With production scaling up, Mission Barns aims to expand distribution while reducing costs.

Their Revenue Model includes plans to generate revenue through hybrid product sales but focuses on a B2B technology licensing model. Instead of building its own factories, Mission Barns will supply cultivated fat ingredients and proprietary bioreactor technology to food companies, allowing them to integrate Mission Fat into their production.

Technological Advancements

Mission Barns focuses on cultivated fat tissue, pioneering a specialised bioreactor system designed for adherent pig fat cells. Unlike many cell-culture approaches that modify cells for suspension growth, Mission Barns preserves their natural attachment preference, engineering bioreactors to support high-density growth on a substrate with efficient nutrient perfusion. This approach minimises shear stress and simplifies cell harvesting via a food-safe dissociation solution, improving scalability and efficiency.

Their bioreactor achieves high volumetric productivity without genetic modification. At the same time, a proprietary animal-free culture medium removes the need for fetal bovine serum, enhancing cost-effectiveness. Growing fat tissue has advantages over muscle cultivation, requiring simpler, glucose-based media and a less complex maturation process. Mission Barns' pig fat cells, derived from subcutaneous belly fat, naturally immortalise and proliferate robustly in serum-free conditions. The fat is chemically equivalent to conventional pork fat, improving the taste and mouthfeel of plant-based products without regulatory hurdles tied to genetic engineering.

Pilot-scale results affirm Mission Barns" progress, with over 100 successful batches optimising media efficiency and yield. The company aims for price parity with conventional pork fat, citing reduced production costs and improved process efficiencies. FDA approval confirms its cultivated fat's safety and compositional equivalence to conventional pork fat.

Taste tests demonstrate the effectiveness of Mission Fat in enhancing plant-based meats, with many consumers preferring hybrid products over 100% animal-based alternatives. Investors and food industry partners recognise its potential to transform the alternative protein sector by solving the "fat problem," positioning Mission Barns as a pragmatic, scalable cell-agriculture solutions leader.

"This is the first approval in the cultivated meat space in a while, so our hope is that it generates new momentum, not just for us, but for the entire industry..."

Image credit: Mission Barns

Economic Positioning

Since its founding in 2018, Mission Barns has secured over $60 million in venture funding, including a $24 million Series A round in 2021. Key investors include Lever VC, Gullspång Re:Food, and an undisclosed European meat company. By 2024, the company launched a new funding round to support commercial expansion. While its valuation remains undisclosed, it likely falls in the high tens or hundreds of millions, below the $1 billion "unicorn" threshold. For comparison, Upside Foods raised $400 million in a 2022 Series C at a $1 billion+ valuation, reflecting the costlier nature of whole muscle meat cultivation. Mission Barns' capital-efficient strategy focuses on cultivated fat, leveraging partnerships to avoid high infrastructure costs.

Rather than vertical integration, Mission Barns monetises its intellectual property through licensing agreements and joint ventures. Revenue stems from technology licensing fees, royalties, and co-branded product sales rather than direct-to-consumer sales. Major meat processors or plant-based brands can license its cell line and bioreactor designs, incorporating "Mission Fat" into their products while paying royalties. This "Intel Inside" model allows scalable impact without extensive factory investments. Limited retail launches, such as Mission Barns-branded bacon and meatballs in California, serve as proof of concept, helping to validate consumer demand and attract B2B partners. Previous collaborations, such as a 2021 partnership with Silva Sausage, demonstrated this low-capex approach, and ongoing discussions with meat companies in the U.S., Europe, and Asia suggest potential for broader adoption.

Mission Barns is regarded as a key innovator in cultivated fat, addressing taste and texture limitations in plant-based meats. We all know their technology as a "game-changer" A plant-based burger enhanced with Mission Fat could drastically increase and improve repeat purchases and accelerate the category's growth. Its strategic positioning as a "bridge" between orthodox and future foods has attracted investments from both conventional meat and alternative protein stakeholders. Lever VC has praised Mission Barns' fat as the most meat-like innovation in decades, reinforcing its unique role in the value chain.

Progress is particularly impressive given the broader challenges in cultivated meat investment. After peaking at nearly $1 billion in 2021, global funding declined to ~$800 million in 2022 and dropped sharply to ~$177 million in 2023. In the past, startups struggled with high burn rates, workforce reductions, and shutdowns. Mission Barns' ability to raise further capital in this climate and then advance toward commercialisation gave investors confidence. Achieving technical milestones like as pilot-scale production and FDA approval has strengthened its market position. The company has mitigated risk and maintained financial resilience by focusing on cultivated fat (a scalable, revenue-generating component).

If Mission Barns' retail pilots succeed and it secures licensing deals, it could attract further investment or even explore public markets. Currently, it operates as a well-funded, agile startup with a clear B2B strategy, aiming to scale through partnerships rather than direct sales.

Future Moves

Pilot Market Launch (2025–2026)

Mission Barns is transitioning from R&D to commercial rollout. Its first limited-scale product launches will occur at select venues, such as Fiorella restaurant dinners and Sprouts/Berkeley Bowl stores, allowing consumer feedback and product iteration. Weekly specials and small batches will help educate the public on cultivated meat, emphasising that its bacon and meatballs contain real pork fat grown from cells for authentic taste with improved sustainability. Marketing efforts, including in-store demos, will reinforce this message. If consumers respond positively, Mission Barns will expand into restaurants and retailers, targeting cities like Los Angeles and New York, cities where they could potentially partner with high-end chefs.

Scaling Production

Mission Barns is pursuing two parallel scale-up strategies:

In-house Expansion – Developing a large-scale production facility with bigger bioreactors and automated processing to support regional supply.
Partner Manufacturing – Licensing its technology to external manufacturers, allowing global scaling without massive upfront capital expenditures. This model is already in motion with Silva Sausage and a 2021 collaboration with China's HEROTEIN for hybrid products. Future international partnerships, including in Europe, are likely, though regulatory approvals may lag.

Product Pipeline

Current offerings (bacon, meatballs, sausage) rely on the same cultivated fat ingredient. Potential future products include:

B2B Ingredients – Cultivated pork lard for food manufacturers.
Novel Products – Fat-based butter or shortening.
Species Expansion – Technology can cultivate fat from multiple animals, suggesting future beef or chicken fat development for plant-based meat applications.

Regulatory Milestones

Mission Barns has FDA safety clearance and is in the final stages of obtaining USDA approval for U.S. sales. Once granted (expected 2025), this will enable broader retail expansion beyond tasting events. International approvals will follow, with Singapore as a likely early market due to its receptive regulators. The EU and parts of Asia may take longer to approve cultivated meat.

Ethical Stance

Mission Barns was founded to create meat more sustainably and humanely, addressing ethical concerns in industrial animal agriculture. A small biopsy from a living pig, causing only brief discomfort, generates a cell line that multiplies indefinitely. This allows one pig to produce millions of pounds of pork fat in bioreactors without further harm. The company emphasises that no animals are killed in its process, obviously reducing harm caused to sentient beings, as is the case in conventional animal agriculture.

For sustainability, Mission Barns argues that cultivated meat dramatically reduces the environmental impact of meat production. Traditional livestock farming requires vast land, water, and feed while emitting greenhouse gases. Mission Barns' bioreactor-based process uses a fraction of the land, recycles water efficiently, and can be powered by renewable energy. Unlike factory farms, their sterile environment eliminates the need for antibiotics, reducing concerns about antibiotic resistance and zoonotic diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic showed us that the risks of livestock-based disease transmission reinforce the appeal of cultivated meat.

But, Mission Barns acknowledges that cultivated meat's sustainability depends on energy efficiency and clean power. A 2023 UC Davis study suggested that early production methods might have a larger carbon footprint than beef due to energy-intensive processes. In response, the company prioritises food-grade rather than pharmaceutical-grade inputs and scales up production to improve efficiency. If its facilities use renewable energy, the carbon footprint will drop immensely.

Regulatory compliance and transparency are essential to its ethical framework because the company secured FDA approval by proving that its cultured fat is non-GMO, free of harmful substances, and nutritionally comparable to conventional meat. The FDA's scientific review confirmed its safety, and Mission Barns is now working with the USDA on clear labelling. Consumers will hopefully see terms like "cultivated pork," guaranteeing transparency and honesty in marketing. They plan on educating the public to reinforce trust in this emerging technology.

Mission Barns primarily targets omnivores who value ethics but still crave real meat. They offer a slaughter-free alternative to conventional meat. In contrast, others will reject it due to its animal-derived nature. The company avoids labelling it as vegetarian and instead promotes it as a better ethical choice for meat eaters. It argues that a hybrid product (90% plant-based with 10% cultivated fat) is a more effective way to reduce harm than relying solely on plant-based substitutes.

Food security is another ethical priority because cultivated meat can be produced in controlled environments year-round, reducing reliance on global supply chains and mitigating risks from climate change, disease outbreaks, and price volatility.

Cultivated Meat Peers

Mission Barns operates in the cultivated meat sector, specifically focusing on cultivated fat. Unlike companies growing full cuts of meat, such as Upside Foods and GOOD Meat, Mission Barns takes a more targeted, capital-efficient approach by combining cultivated fat with plant proteins. This strategy reduces complexity and cost, allowing it to secure regulatory approval for cultivated pork fat ahead of most peers. While Upside and GOOD Meat work toward fully cultivated meat, Mission Barns delivers hybrid products sooner.

Internationally, Mosa Meat (Netherlands) and Aleph Farms (Israel) focus on beef. At the same time, Believer Meats (Israel) develops hybrid nuggets but faces scale-up challenges. The sector has seen consolidation, with some startups folding or merging. As interest in hybrid approaches grows, Mission Barns faces potential competition from larger players that may develop their own cultivated fat. It must enhance production efficiency and secure partnerships before rivals catch up to maintain its lead.

Cultivated Fat Competitors

Initially a pioneer in cultured fat, Mission Barns now faces competition from Peace of Meat (Belgium) and Hoxton Farms (UK). Peace of Meat, acquired by Steakholder Foods, developed cultured chicken fat but remains in the prototype phase without regulatory approval. Hoxton Farms, founded in 2020, is scaling up its production in London and focusing on supplying European food manufacturers. While Mission Barns leads in operational readiness and regulatory clearance in the U.S., Hoxton has a strategic advantage in Europe.

Fermentation-based alternatives also pose competition. Nourish Ingredients (Australia) and Melt&Marble (Sweden) produce animal-like fats through microbial fermentation, offering a vegan alternative. While fermentation-based fats can mimic some properties of animal fat, they may lack the full complexity of cell-cultured fat. The market will likely be divided between food manufacturers prioritising taste (cultivated fat) and those aiming for vegan labelling (fermentation fat).

Alternative Protein Market

Mission Barns’ cultivated fat complements plant-based and fermentation-derived proteins by improving flavour and texture. Plant-based meats, such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, have struggled with replicating the sensory experience of animal fat, relying on coconut or cocoa butter, which perform poorly in cooking.

Some plant-based brands already explore hybrid approaches, such as Silva Sausage, which partnered with Mission Barns on a cultivated-fat sausage, and Enough (UK), which combined mycoprotein with Peace of Meat’s fat. This trend suggests a shift towards hybrid alt-protein solutions.

Mission Barns competes with traditional plant-based products for consumers and pricing will be key. While cultivated meat remains costly, hybrid products (where plant proteins make up the bulk) could reach price parity with conventional meat sooner than fully cultivated meat. Success depends on scaling production, maintaining affordability, and forging strategic partnerships before competitors enter the cultivated fat space.