Leo DiCaprio Invests In Cultivated Meat Start-Ups Mosa Meat, Aleph Farms
FILE - In this Feb. 9, 2020, file photo, Leonardo DiCaprio arrives at the Oscars in Los Angeles. DiCaprio is helping to launch the $12 million America’s Food Fund aimed at helping low-income families, the elderly and those whose jobs have been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. Among those teaming up for the launch are philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, Apple and the Ford Foundation. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
Actor and Climate-Activist Leonardo DiCaprio is investing in and joining the advisory boards of Aleph Farms and Mosa Meat, the two cultivated meat start-ups said in a statement on Wednesday. “One of the most impactful ways to combat the climate crisis is to transform our food system,” DiCaprio said in the news release. “Mosa Meat and Aleph Farms offer new ways to satisfy the world’s demand for beef, while solving some of the most pressing issues of current industrial beef production.”
The announcement comes on the heels of earlier investments by the “Titanic” star in publicly traded Beyond Meat, which sells burgers and sausages made from plants.
Aleph Farms “grows beef steaks, from non-genetically engineered cells isolated from a living cow, without harming animals and with a significantly reduced impact to the environment,” while Mosa Meat “introduced the world’s first cultivated beef hamburger in 2013, by growing it directly from cow cells,” according to the press release.
Alternative meat advocates characterize such ventures as a critical component of addressing climate change.
Conventional livestock management is a source of greenhouse gases through the clearing of trees to make room for animal feed production and the raising of livestock, and emissions from the animals themselves.
