As the son of two military officers, I grew up hearing at the dinner table just how critical logistics and supply chains are to national security (“soldiers win battles; logistics wins wars”). Little did I know then, food innovation at the dinner table and the mess hall is essential to national defense, biosecurity, and warfighter readiness. To better understand the connection between food security and national security, I sat down with Justin Kolbeck, co-founder of cultivated seafood company Wildtype and former U.S. Foreign Service Officer to talk about the potential for cultivated meat to provide solutions to many of the challenges posed by feeding our men and women in uniform. Cultivated meat and seafood deliver the experience of meat and seafood but are made in a new way. These products are compositionally identical to conventional meat.
Pepin Tuma: Justin, can you share more about your background as a former Foreign Service Officer and your transition into the cultivated meat and seafood sector?
Justin Kolbeck: I started my career as a diplomat in Peshawar (Pakistan), then Melbourne (Australia), and later a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Paktika (Afghanistan). While I was working with U.S. troops and Paktika’s provincial governor to provide critical services there, I witnessed the calamitous impact of war on local food supplies. I realized just how fundamental a reliable and secure food system is to national security goals—whether in Afghanistan or back home in the United States. My experiences sparked my interest in how cutting-edge technologies can address food supply challenges. Today, I lead Wildtype, an American cultivated seafood company, where we produce salmon and other seafood products by growing them directly from cells.
PT: How concerned are you with political attacks on cultivated meat and seafood and other food technologies related to research and development in the defense arena?
JK: As a former Foreign Service Officer, I understand the need to fortify our food system and strengthen U.S. supply chains. As a CEO of a leading cultivated seafood company, I recognize the importance of safe and healthy products people actually want to eat. So I’m deeply concerned about recent efforts by some in Congress to undermine the Department of Defense’s (DoD) authorities in warfighter innovation and national security and to spread misinformation about cultivated meat.
Cultivated meat and seafood are made from the same building blocks that comprise the meat and seafood you and I eat every day–animal cells. Our seafood is delicious and I don’t hesitate for a moment to share it with my family. Any so-called “chemicals” fed to cultivated meat cells are the same “chemicals” fish and animals feed themselves to grow—water and amino acids, sugars, salts, vitamins, and proteins—it’s just that our products don’t have the high levels of mercury, antibiotics, and other contaminants found in conventional seafood.
Any attempt by politicians to censor DoD’s research and development—including recent amendments proposed to the DoD appropriations bill and the NDAA—could significantly limit our ability to engage in 21st century combat.
PT: My father spent his career on submarines; how can food innovations like cultivated meat and seafood benefit warfighter readiness for submariners and others deployed throughout the world?
JK: There are many reasons DoD should be interested in cultivated meat and seafood, including the technology’s potential to enable small-scale, localized food production in defense settings ranging from deployments to duty stations at military bases abroad, to submarine voyages, and even on space missions.
Studies show that cultivated meat production is faster and requires fewer resources, making it a desirable tool for deployable military locations. Cultivated meat could produce up to 92 percent less emissions, and use up to 95 percent less land and 78 percent less water when compared to conventional beef production. It also takes far less time to produce cultivated meat. Wildtype, for example, can produce seafood within four to six weeks versus the two years it takes to grow farmed salmon.
Investment in cultivated meat innovation can reduce the financial, military, and human costs involved in maintaining extended global supply lines. During the Afghanistan war, for example, DoD spent $5.5 billion between 2005 and 2011 to deliver food to military sites, and more than 300 truck drivers and security guards were killed transporting food to our warfighters. Innovative, point-of-need food production methods such as cultivated meat can reduce cost, save lives, and improve warfighter morale. The ability to produce food locally and rapidly enables our Armed Forces to deploy faster and stay in the fight longer, while ensuring a stable food supply.
Gen. Robert H. Barrow, Former Commandant of the Marine Corps, said something similar to what you heard at the dinner table growing up: “Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics.” Supply chains are acute pressure points that can paralyze a war machine, when vulnerable. Fortifying supply chains can win wars. For these reasons, DoD has long been interested in modernizing food field feeding capabilities.
PT: How can cultivated meat and seafood benefit national security beyond defense-related applications?
JK: Cultivating meat and seafood from cells is one food system tool for the United States to advance homeland security. From duct tape to the internet itself, DoD-backed products and technologies often expand to the civilian market, providing broad benefits. Innovative food technologies like cultivated meat expand consumer choice while increasing food security.
As the non-partisan think tank CSIS concluded, cultivated meat and other alternative proteins can increase supply chain resilience and reduce agricultural bioterrorism risks. The simplified production processes for these products means significantly fewer grain and other required inputs, and their relative insusceptibility to animal diseases mean greater resilience as compared to conventional meat. Because this food production method does not rely on animals, it is also immune to the effects of animal-borne illnesses such as the bird flu virus that has already been found in 20%+ of US milk supplies.
Cultivated seafood in particular can address growing supply vulnerabilities, as 70 to 85 percent of U.S. seafood is currently imported. Demand is only set to accelerate. Forestalling innovation in cellular agriculture deepens our dependence on foreign imports, largely from China.
PT: How else does cultivated meat and seafood fit into national security and global competitiveness?
JK: World leaders around the globe have been investing heavily in alternative proteins like cultivated meat because of their potential for economic and defense-related innovation.
One world leader in particular said: “It is necessary to expand from traditional crops and livestock and poultry resources to more abundant biological resources, develop biotechnology and bio-industry.” Any guesses on who said this? It wasn’t Joe Biden or Justin Trudeau. It was Chinese President Xi Jinping. In fact, China has prioritized cultivated meat in its most recent five-year agricultural plan. Our allies in places like Japan, Singapore, and Gulf countries have also embraced the technology.
The United States has long been the world leader in agriculture research, including cultivated meat breakthroughs, yet we are at risk of falling behind without substantial investment and governmental support.
If Congress were to prohibit cultivated meat R&D, it would take a valuable weapon out of DoD’s arsenal. It may very well be the case that the military or the federal government never actually use it. But to prevent any research from the start on a technology other countries are actively developing, would be like tying one hand behind the country’s back.
PT: Anything else to add?
JK: By barring DoD from pursuing cultivated meat research, the United States could lose its competitive edge in a global food innovation race. As a technology that can provide point-of-need production for defense forces while increasing food security for regular Americans, cultivated meat and seafood should be a top priority for U.S. innovation. Meanwhile, food technologies—including and especially alternative proteins—will prove more and more essential to solving global problems like famines, war, and pandemics, and ensuring global stability.
PT: Agreed. Politics should not stand in the way of DoD’s plans to research and develop food system solutions. It simply makes no sense to stifle innovation on promising technologies with potentially enormous stakes. I’m really grateful for your insights, Justin; thank you for taking the time to chat.
