Who is Magic Valley?

Magic Valley is a cultivated meat start-up based in Melbourne, Australia.

We make meat. Real, irresistible, delicious. Meat for meat lovers. But, at Magic Valley, we’re animal lovers too. So, instead of raising and slaughtering animals, we use pioneering technologies to grow meat from cells. 

Our mission is to create a kinder, more sustainable meat production system. We're passionate about creating a better future - for the planet, for animals, and for people.

Our Journey so far:

We need your help to get to the next level - we've created and tasted our product, and we want to share it with everyone.

But first - here's some more about us and why we do what we do.

THE PROBLEM

People enjoy eating meat - especially in Australia! It's at the centre of our family barbecues, it's a huge part of our diets, and it's deeply intertwined with cultural and social traditions.

But meat has many negative impacts - on the environment, on animal welfare, and on our health. And as the world population has grown and meat consumption has grown with it exponentially, production methods have become more and more energy-intensive, cruel, and unsanitary. Animal agriculture is one of the leading contributors to climate change.

The population is going to hit 10 billion by 2050, and meat consumption is projected to grow by 100%. 

Most people are aware of the negative impacts of meat consumption but until now there hasn't been a real meat alternative that allows them to align their values with their dietary choices.

THE SOLUTION: CULTIVATED MEAT

Enter cultivated meat! 

Real animal meat. Not a single animal harmed.

Cultivated meat is real animal meat, grown from cells instead of the traditional method of raising and slaughtering animals.

Our pioneering technology allows us to create meat with the same taste, texture, and nutrition as traditional meat. 

What makes Magic Valley different is that our technology involves absolutely no animal products besides the initial collection of cells - meaning our meat is completely harm-free.

All we need is a small skin scraping (less than 5mm in diameter to be exact!) to collect starter cells. The animal is free to live its life happy and healthy, and we don't need to get cells from another animal again!

This is Lucy the Lamb - the very special cell donor who allowed us to create the first-ever cultivated lamb burger using iPSC technology.

So... How does it taste?

In 2023, Magic Valley held our first-ever tastings for our cultivated meat!

Fun fact about our Senior Research Assistant Wendy - along with her qualifications in science and her extensive experience in cell biology research, she's a professionally qualified chef.

Wendy cooked up cultivated pork dumplings in chilli oil for our first tastings.

The consensus? It tastes just like regular meat!

Take it from Dani Valent, food critic and journalist for The Age. And for context - Dani asked for her dumpling with no sauce and peeled off the dumpling skin too - she wanted to make sure she could properly taste and judge the pork meat itself!

Read Dani Valent's piece about Magic Valley here!

THE IMPACT

Where do we even start?

MEDIA

People are excited about the future of cultivated meat - there's no doubt about that. 

Read what people are saying about us:

Herald Sun

Australian Financial Review

ABC

The Australian

Green Queen

Future Alternative

Vegconomist

Business News Australia

Or watch a story on us:

OUR TEAM

Our team is deeply passionate about the work we do - we're excited to see this technology make a real impact in the world.

For more information about our team, head to our website!

PROCESS

Step 1: Skin cells are painlessly collected (one-time only) from a living animal's skin cells using Magic Valley's non-invasive techniques

Step 2: Cells are inserted into Magic Valley's nutrient-rich FBS-free medium, reprogrammed into induced pluripotent stem cells and differentiated into any cell type that is needed for different meat products.

Step 3: The cells continue to proliferate and multiply in bioreactors - no scaffold is needed, reducing cost and complexity.

Step 4: Cells are then "harvested" and combined with plant-based materials to create delicious, safe, and healthy products ready for consumption.

So, why are we crowdfunding?

Developing any new food product requires a significant amount of money, and it is essential we make sure that when our product is ready for the shelves that it's safe, delicious and genuinely capable of changing the food production system for the better.

The money raised in this campaign will go towards three main goals.

1. Fitting out our pilot plant with equipment

This industry is very new, meaning the equipment we require to scale our production requires a lot of money. 

We're planning out our purpose-built pilot plant with larger bioreactors, which will allow us to produce more meat at a lower cost.

By incorporating this new equipment, we are laying the foundation for future expansion and increased efficiency. The larger the scale of production, the more we can reduce the overall cost per unit of meat produced. 

2. Product Development and Testing

Product development and testing are vital stages in the lifecycle of any successful product.

We will use the funding to run strategic tests which ensure we deliver a market-ready final product that will be safe, tasty, and compliant with industry and regulatory standards.

This will ensure the product not only meets consumer expectations but also fulfils legal and safety requirements.

3. Raising Awareness

A lot of people still don't even know that cultivated meat exists! One of our goals is to promote awareness surrounding the transformative potential of this new technology - technology that allows us to continue eating meat without harming a single animal or contributing to climate change.