Inside Vow’s Labs: A Glimpse into the Future of Food

During Sydney’s very first Climate Action Week, a lucky group of 50 people came to an exclusive factory tour of cultured meat company, Vow, organised by Glimpse.

Vow is an Australian food-tech startup that's radically reimagining the future of food. From crafting the viral woolly mammoth meatball using ancient DNA to launching Quailia, a new culinary creation derived from a subspecies of the Japanese quail, Vow is revolutionising the food industry with its innovations.

Head of Product & Technology, Jeroen Boersma, shared some eye-opening insights at the start of the tour. With global protein consumption expected to rise by 12% by 2030 due to population growth, the demand for meat is set to soar. Unfortunately, this surge comes with severe environmental consequences, such as increased greenhouse gas emissions and widespread deforestation for cattle grazing.

Vow's cutting-edge technology offers an innovative solution. By taking a tiny sample from an animal, selecting the ideal cells, and culturing them, Vow can grow high-quality meat. However, their strategy isn’t to compete with existing meat products (as meat eaters are unlikely to buy the cultured version of a familiar product), but to craft delicious food unlike anything else on the market.

Jeroen shared that chefs are limited by few options of animals (think beef, chicken, pork, lamb) and they are working with top chefs on creating nutritious and tasty food that can delight the senses (and pave a way to a more sustainable form of food for the future). Vow recently introduced a high-end Forged quail parfait in Singapore’s Mandala Club, with a flavour and texture combination that you apparently can’t find anywhere else.

Given the confidential nature of their technology, we weren’t allowed to take photos of the labs (the photos in this article are approved photos that we can share), However, we were all wowed by the complexity of their factory and got a glimpse of the future of food production with our very own eyes.