Meet the Vegetarian Changing the World of Meat

April 2022

At first glance, Anne-Sophie Mertgen, Ph.D. seems like an outlier among meat producers, including those in the alternative and cultivated meat sector. A vegetarian from Germany and Co-founder of a Mexico-based startup, she doesn’t fit the typical profile of someone in her industry. And yet, she believes those qualities give her a better understanding of the market and customer needs.

“Even though I don’t eat meat, as a vegetarian I want to get animals out of the supply chain of food,” Mertgen says

“Even though I don’t eat meat, as a vegetarian I want to get animals out of the supply chain of food,” Mertgen says. With the exciting traction that her company has received in its first year of operation, she is determined to penetrate a culture so heavily centered around meat-based meals.

After completing her Ph.D. in tissue engineering in Switzerland, she moved to Mexico for a postdoctoral research position at the Tecnológico de Monterrey. From there, she found herself immersed in the emerging field of cultivated meat, and became exposed to the meat alternative ecosystem. While many startups were struggling to scale production past a few kilograms, she quickly realized the enormous impact this work could have if she succeeded. After all, everyone eats.

Mertgen is determined to penetrate a culture so heavily centered around meat-based meals

Micro Meat is normal meat made from animal cells, but the muscle tissue is grown in bioreactors instead of in animals. The resulting product is better for the planet (less water and land consumed), better for people (no antibiotics and less risk for contracting diseases from livestock), and, obviously, better for the animals.

Leveraging her background in tissue engineering, Mertgen is addressing the bottleneck problem plaguing others in her field by using a scaffolding technique to scale cultivated meat production. Scaffolding is a common process in tissue engineering that provides a “home” for the cells, where they are allowed to form actual mature muscle tissue. Because we still produce relatively small 3D tissues we call them microtissues, hence the Micro Meat name.

Micro Meat is normal meat made from animal cells, but the muscle tissue is grown in bioreactors instead of in animals

Being a founder in Mexico has forced Mertgen to think outside the box, she says. During the pandemic, traditional chemical suppliers were affected by supply chain constraints, so she purchased some critical materials from a bakery, instead. It’s this ingenuity and resourcefulness that sets Mertgen apart from other founders. Doubtless, she’ll continue to field questions about her unconventional background, but in time, it’s her work ethic and motivation to make a better, meatless world that will dominate the conversation and defy expectations.