Europe’s largest cultivated meat facility to start operations in 2027
Meatly aims to accelerate commercial production in the UK after becoming the first approved to sell cultivated pet food in the country.
UK-based cultivated meat producer Meatly has secured £10.4 million in Series A funding to finance the construction of a 20,000-litre bioreactor pilot facility in London.
Slated to be the largest cultivated meat plant in Europe, the site represents a definitive shift in the sector’s trajectory, moving operations from laboratory research and development into industrial-scale manufacturing.
The company was the first in the UK to receive government authorization in 2024 to sell pet food made from lab-grown meat.
Targeting the local market
Meatly anticipates that the facility will be fully operational with commercial product releases scaling up by 2027.
”This investment marks a powerful endorsement – not just of Meatly, but of Britain’s foodtech and biotech sectors. Meatly has one focus – to make commercially viable cultivated meat a reality,” says company CEO Owen Ensor.
For Ensor, this step will allow them to prove “commercial viability at scale “and start to “continually” produce Meatly Chicken for the UK pet food market.
Last year, Pets at Home started the company’s cultivated meat Chick Bites treat at its store in Brentford, London, marking the first commercial test for the product.
Capital raised
The funding round brings Meatly’s total raised capital to £17.4 million, building upon a £7 million seed round backed by founding investor Agronomics and British pet retailer Pets at Home.
In 2024, the cultivated meat player reported it had reduced the cost of its chemically defined, protein-free culture medium to £0.22 per litre. In 2025, the company announced a tenfold reduction in the cost of its bioreactors through proprietary design.
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