The idea behind Red Tail started with a conversation I had with a Dutch friend of mine, who introduced me to the concept of cultivated meat. Some claim that the inspiration for growing meat outside of an animal came from another Dutchman, Willem van Eelen, a physician and former Japanese prisoner-of-war who, after experiencing extreme hunger himself, began to explore the idea that you could grow meat at a cellular level. Others point to Winston Churchill as an early proponent of cultivating meat. In a 1931 essay, titled “Fifty Years Hence”, the war-time Prime Minister stated that “[in the future] we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.” Regardless of who was first to think up the idea, many people throughout history, and throughout the world, have been toying with the notion that there must be a better way of producing meat, each with their own motivations.
After I was introduced to the idea, cogs began to turn. And after some time came the realisation that cultivating meat could make vast areas of land available for uses other than grazing animals and growing the feed crops that sustain them. Growing up in Shropshire, I was surrounded by gently rolling hills and vast stretches of farmland, teeming with sheep and cows. To most, this would seem like an idyllic, bucolic scene that you might find on the back of a postcard. And it was. Taking the dogs for a walk along bridal paths through farms or up in the Shropshire hills was, and still is, incredibly peaceful - an antidote to stress and screens.
Ignorance, however, is bliss. I don’t know why I decided to pick up the book Wilding by Isabella Tree, but since reading it, and the books it inspired, the traditional British landscape has lost some of its appeal. Visiting places like the Knepp Estate in West Sussex or the Oostvaardersplassen in the Netherlands, for example, reveals exactly what those landscapes are missing and, once seen cannot be unseen. These wilder landscapes pulse with life in a way that British farms simply do not - cannot. Nature isn’t subdued but set free. The places hum with insects, wetlands echo with the calls of returning storks and ancient oaks stand untouched, their branches heavy with lichen and bird song. Herds of free-roaming herbivores carve out the land as they once did in wilder times, their grazing patterns creating a shifting mosaic of grassland, scrub and woodland. The air is thick with the scent of wildflowers, damp earth and the richness of decay - an ecosystem that is alive in every sense.
Farms simply cannot look like this - at least not at the moment. Producing meat for a large, meat-hungry population means rearing lots and lots of animals. For context, along the river valleys of the Severn and the Wye, there are 79 chickens for every person (51 million in total), and in Shropshire as a whole there are estimated to be 27 million factory farmed animals. Of course, the sheep and the cows that I see are not factory farmed. They are allowed to roam, relatively freely, across the countryside - for which I’m sure they’re very grateful. The problem is that the way we produce meat today is the very reason that farms will never be able to replicate the wilder landscapes that inspire so much joy and energy, let alone the ecosystem services they provide that help us stand any chance of mitigating the worst effects of climate change.
The animals we graze on the land, as well as the densities at which they are stocked, prevent the land's dynamic processes from occurring - our farmland is locked in perpetual stasis. Across the country, animals are stocked at such - relatively unnatural - high densities that the flora simply cannot succeed into scrub or woodland and provide havens for the creatures that live there. Before we farmed the land so intensively, native flora and fauna would compete, shaping the other’s behaviours. Herbivores would graze the land and they would move on. Grasses would grow back, along with shrubs and flowers, and occasionally give way to woodland. Some of the flora would develop defences against the herbivores - a nasty sting or a nasty taste - or they would have the help of predators to hurry them along. In the absence of predators and the high stocking densities of livestock (and even sometimes non-native livestock), we get used to the idea of our landscapes looking like the baize of a snooker table - green and stubbly.
Which brings us back to cultivated meat. If we are able to produce meat without animals, then not only do we prevent the mass slaughter of millions of sentient beings, but we also don’t need to sacrifice so much land for their production. 85% of the land that is used to produce food for the UK is devoted to the rearing or feeding of livestock, despite the fact that meat provides only a third of our calories. If we’re able to take back this land, then we have an opportunity to restore or rewild this land for the benefit of people and the planet.
We are in urgent need of land use change. Natural capital solutions are our best opportunity to prevent further climate change and mitigate what is already heading our way. Despite the environmental arguments, we deserve these landscapes. As our landscapes have eroded over time, so too have our expectations. Reintroducing people to these wild spaces will show them what we’ve lost, and only by exposing people to what we could have can we expect them to care. During Covid, the NHS began a prescription for nature - the practice of supporting people to engage in nature-based interventions and activities to improve their mental and physical wellbeing. As if it needed proving, studies demonstrate that spending time in nature - on a walk in a field, or alongside a river - has profound effects on our physiology and can alleviate stress, as well as the symptoms of depression and anxiety. In a world so obsessed with productivity and image, the natural world reminds us to slow down - it is purposeful without a purpose.
So, my motivation for pursuing cultivated meat is the immense impact it could have on the way we use our land. However, if there is to be a transition in the food we eat or even how we use the land, it must be a just transition. It is no use producing cultivated meat if farmers are forced off the land and the countryside becomes filled with golf courses and hotels.
At Red Tail, we believe that farmers ought to retain their role as food producers and stewards of the land. They are the ones who have been producing our food and shaping our countryside for centuries. Equally, they are not the ones to blame for the environmental damage caused by eating meat. Farms are businesses, they respond to market signals, and when places like the UK demand so much meat, they are inclined to produce it with whatever available technology they have. Campaigners have tried to get people to eat less meat for decades and, largely, they haven’t worked. People like eating meat, and why shouldn’t they? For many people, meat is part of their culture or even their identity.
Plant-based foods have tried and, again, largely, failed to convince meat eaters to eat less meat. For vegetarians, vegans and those who are sympathetic to their cause, plant-based meat has been adopted. But it has not convinced everyone else because many of these products fail to replicate the taste, the nutrition or the cost of meat products.
Cultivated meat, being real animal meat - genetically identical to what we might eat today - has the potential to convince a lot more people. This industry is coming. It is well fuelled and it has transformational potential - though, whether it will be a success is yet to be seen. We believe that farmers deserve to be part of that journey and that’s why we are helping farmers adopt cultivated meat production technologies and assist them in navigating the complexities of turning land from grazing land to wilder land. This is not just an altruistic mission but an economic one. The current farming system has a lot of middlemen resulting in farmers receiving an average of £0.21 for a kg of beef. With fewer middlemen, farmers can expect a much higher return from on-site cultivated meat production. Equally, natural capital markets (or payments for ecosystem services) are becoming increasingly mature, with Biodiversity Net Gain gaining momentum alongisde the government's Environmental Land Management and Landscape Recovery schemes. What's more, using land for other purposes allows for diversified income streams. Some of these revenue generating ideas are yet to be conceived but they could include ecotourism, camping, wild meat or corporate away days. Whatever it might be, farmers need to diversify. Climate change is upending the predictability of harvests and volatile agricultural markets and supermarket dominance continue to plough on. We offer a solution that benefits nature, farmers and consumers.
For centuries, the way we produce meat has directly shaped our landscapes, with a singular focus on food production. Cultivated meat offers us a chance to break the cycle and reimagine how we use our land, being conscious of contemporary ecological and social needs. By freeing up land from intensive grazing, we can restore ecosystems, create wilder, more resilient landscapes and unlock new opportunities for farmers. This transition must be just - farmers should be at the heart of it and not left behind. Red Tail exists to make that possible, helping farmers shift towards a future where food production works in harmony with nature, not against it. We don’t have to accept the landscapes we’ve inherited - we can build something far better, far wilder.
