What grows. What feeds. Who decides what scales.
the Circle. meatevo.com
Who decides what scales.
The thesis
Meat Evolution Leaders Summit · 10 and 11 February 2027 · Hotel Palace Berlin
Why now
The capital cycle that funded the first wave of alternative protein has closed. Capital now backs the plant that can prove its cost, clearance now diverges by market, and a new protein reaches scale only when a buyer commits to it on price and on supply. Europe sets its own terms: the names of meat reserved for meat, first plants carried by grants and loans. The leaders who sign for the plant are in this room.
The through-line
From pilot to plate.
Every decision in this room reaches a consumer who has not yet chosen what to eat. The scale decision is the market decision. The leaders who see that close the gap before it becomes a cost-per-kilo problem, a regulatory delay or a supply failure. MEVO convenes them across cultivated protein, precision fermentation and biomass fermentation. The corridor from pilot to plate is where biology becomes food at scale, or does not.
Where the room sits
BILS covers biopharma manufacturing. DDIF covers drug discovery. MEVO begins where the food system meets the fermentation plant. The scale question that neither conventional food industry nor the first wave of alt protein startups has fully answered. The room stays on the manufacturing and commercial discipline of protein production. Not the science of protein. The process of making it real.
What the room gives
Themed discussions under the Chatham House Rule. Curated introductions to named principals, arranged in advance and held in every coffee and lunch break. The networking dinner, seated at themed tables. An audience of influence: the leaders who own the decision, one end user to every partner.
At a glance · 10 and 11 February 2027
10 February · The Scale Decision
Bruce Friedrich · GFI
Which cell lines are ready for commercial scale?
Deepika Rajesh · Roslin Technologies
What can continuous processing from biopharma do for a food plant?
Announced shortly
What does a precision fermentation line need to grow with demand?
Frederieke Reiners · GEA Group
Which plants are lenders ready to finance?
Announced shortly
Where is public money backing new plants?
Announced shortly
Which proteins are strategic buyers backing?
Announced shortly
Can hybrid products take mycoprotein to the mass market?
Paul Shapiro · The Better Meat Co.
What name will sell a new protein in Europe?
Announced shortly
Set by the room
Announced shortly
Who manufactures the future?
Max Jamilly · chaired by Uwe Gottschalk
11 February · The Market Decision
Bruce Friedrich · GFI
Who is accountable when a strain selected by AI fails at scale?
Announced shortly
Which plant decisions should be automated first, and which must keep a human signature?
Announced shortly
What does AI change in biomanufacturing and supply?
Neta Lavon · chaired by Uwe Gottschalk
What is winning the consumer over to new protein?
Announced shortly
Which regulators are opening the fastest route to market?
Announced shortly
What earns a new protein its place on the shelf?
Announced shortly
What can cultivated meat take from cell therapy to win first?
Gabor Forgacs · Fork & Good
Can pharmaceutical fermentation plants scale food protein?
Announced shortly
What brings a consumer back for a second purchase?
Announced shortly
What does the room commit to before it leaves?
Announced shortly
Set by the room
Announced shortly
Day One · 10 February 2027
What it takes to produce alternative protein at a cost the market will pay. Not the science. The process economics.
08:45
Chair's opening · 15 min
MEVO opens on what is ready to scale next, and where. Bruce Friedrich, President and Founder of the Good Food Institute, chairs the room and sets its question. MEVO shares Berlin with BILS and CGTI, so food scale up meets the biologics and cell therapy leaders who scaled the same biology first.
09:00
Keynote · Regulation · 45 min
Cultivated chicken at scale is now a manufacturing question.
Bruce Friedrich has set the question: what scales next. Precision fermented lactoferrin launched commercially in the United States in 2026, and ADM has agreed to make egg protein at commercial scale. Josh Tetrick asks which proteins follow them, and the cost that sets the pace comes next.
09:45
Voices · Scale · 30 min
Fermentation earns its place at industrial volume.
Fermentation is reaching the volume where cost, not promise, decides the market. Jim Laird, who led Enough for ten years, asks where the cost gap with meat closes first and what closes it. Where cultivated seafood scales follows.
10:15
Voices · Collaboration · 30 min
Seafood's premium gives cultivated protein its earliest margin.
Seafood carries the price and the supply pressure a new protein needs to win early. Lou Cooperhouse, founder of BlueNalu, asks where cultivated seafood reaches the market first. Coffee follows, then the capital that backs it.
11:15
Panel · Scale · 30 min
Where investment in fermentation and cultivated protein is moving next, from the investor and the founders it backs.
Investment is returning to precision fermented dairy in 2026, and this panel names where it moves next.
MEVO · Chaired · Bruce Friedrich · President and Founder, The Good Food Institute · C-suite. Poised: leads the institute that tracks capital, policy and science across alternative protein. Holds the room's question on what earns the right to scale.
MEVO · James Miller · CEO, Evergreen Select · C-suite. Poised: invests in sustainable protein. Knows where patient capital goes next.
MEVO · Roman Laus · Founder and CEO, Mewery · C-suite. Poised: is cutting the cost of cultivated pork with microalgae. Shows what a lower cost base lets a founder raise.
11:45
Short talk · Technology · 15 min
Every cultivated product starts with a cell line that scales.
Every cultivated product begins with the cells it grows from. Deepika Rajesh, Chief Scientific Officer at Roslin Technologies, asks which cell lines are ready for the plant. What biopharma's continuous processing offers a food plant follows.
12:00
Short talk · 15 min
Biopharma's continuous processing can multiply a food plant's output.
Continuous processing adapted from biopharma is gaining credibility in cultivated meat. Scaled with Bühler, continuous fermentation of dairy proteins has shown over threefold productivity gains and half the cost. The equipment that carries it follows.
Announced shortly
12:15
Short talk · Technology · 15 min
New food scales on the line, not in the lab.
A line built for today's volume must be ready for tomorrow's. Frederieke Reiners, who leads GEA's New Food mission, asks what a precision fermentation line needs to grow with demand. Lunch carries it to the tables.
13:45
Voices · Scale · 20 min
Media cost is where cultivated meat wins.
Biologics solved large scale cell culture before food had to. Robert Curry, who sets Cytiva's strategy for cell culture media, asks how far media cost can fall and what it unlocks. Who finances the first plant follows.
14:05
Voices · 20 min
Lenders back plants with buyers and a proven process.
A first plant is financed once its process and its buyer are proven. This session asks which plants lenders are now ready to back, and on what terms. Europe's public money follows.
Announced shortly
14:25
Voices · Scale · 20 min
Public money is building the first plants.
Public money is now part of how a first plant is financed. This session maps where it backs new plants, and what it asks in return. The strategic buyers follow.
Announced shortly
15:15
Voices · 15 min
Strategic buyers now commit capacity, not only interest.
ADM has agreed to make egg protein at commercial scale, and Novonesis is scaling precision fermented lactoferrin with TurtleTree. This session asks which proteins the strategic buyers back next. The channels already buying at volume follow.
Announced shortly
15:30
Voices · Collaboration · 15 min
Hybrid products carry mycoprotein to the mass market.
Pet food, feed and hybrid products reach volume before the consumer shelf does. Paul Shapiro, chief executive of The Better Meat Co., asks whether hybrids are the road to the mass market. The name a new protein may carry follows.
15:45
Voices · Regulation · 15 min
The right name opens Europe's shelf.
Europe is deciding what a new protein may be called. This provocation asks which names will sell, and which the law will allow. The markets opening fastest follow.
Announced shortly
16:00
Voices · Regulation · 15 min
Regulators are competing to host the next approval.
The EU has approved its first mycelium ingredient, and Abu Dhabi now allows tastings before approval. Ryan Simon, who advises on premarket approval worldwide at Intertek Assuris, asks which markets open fastest. What cuts the cost of every protein follows.
16:15
Voices · Technology · 15 min
Protein expression decides the cost of every cell.
The cost of an animal free protein is set where it is expressed. Noelia Valbuena, Director of R&D at Dyadic, asks how far better expression can bring that cost down. The themed tables take it from there.
16:30
Themed discussion · Chatham House Rule · 30 min
The room sets the question and keeps the answer.
The theme comes from the room's own ranked preferences, gathered before the forum.
Announced shortly
17:00
Leaders Panel · Joint · BILS · CGTI · MEVO · Organisation · 30 min
How the leaders who own the plant, the platform and the modality decide where the next capacity goes.
Capacity now follows policy as closely as demand, and the next decade of manufacturing is being committed this year.
BILS · Chaired · Uwe Gottschalk · Operating Partner, Keensight Capital; former Chief Scientific Officer, Lonza · C-suite. Poised: advises and invests in bioprocess companies on scale. Has carried the scale decision at a global manufacturer and now prices it as an investor.
MEVO · Max Jamilly · Co-Founder and CEO, Hoxton Farms · C-suite. Poised: is building cultivated fat at the scale meat demands. Brings food scale up's capital discipline to who manufactures the future.
17:30
Chair's closing remarks · 15 min
The Chair closes Day One on what has earned the right to scale. The tables at dinner carry it forward.
Day Two · 11 February 2027
What the consumer will actually buy. What the retailer will list. Who decides what scales beyond the pilot.
09:00
Chair's opening · 10 min
The Chair opens Day Two on what Day One left open. The day moves from the plant to the shelf and the intelligence that connects them.
09:15
Keynote · Collaboration · 45 min
Cultivated pork moves from innovation to a product people buy.
Day One mapped what is ready to scale; Day Two follows it to market. Shijie Ding, chief executive of Joe’s Future Food in Nanjing, sets out what it takes to bring cultivated pork to market in China. The infrastructure that carries it follows.
10:00
Voices · Technology · 30 min
Infrastructure decides how fast cell biology becomes food.
Speed to market now depends on the infrastructure behind the strain. Andreia Duarte, EMEA Commercial Director at GenScript, asks what infrastructure turns cell biology into food faster. The AI strategy conversation follows.
11:00
AI strategy conversation · Technology · 30 min
The model selects the strain; a person answers for it.
Solar Foods' March 2026 plan takes its protein from 160 tons a year to 6,400 at its first industrial plant. At that scale, a strain or process choice a model recommended is a fortyfold bet. This discussion asks who answers for it, before the next session asks what to automate.
Announced shortly
11:30
Voices · Technology · 30 min
Automate the routine; keep a signature on the consequential.
The previous session named who answers when AI fails at scale. This one asks which plant decisions can pass to automation and which must keep a human signature. The AI panel takes it to the plant floor.
Announced shortly
12:00
Panel · Joint · BILS · CGTI · MEVO · Architecture · 30 min
Which AI uses already run in biologics, cell therapy and food plants, and what each needed before the quality unit trusted it.
AI is now in regular use across the industry, yet few plants can show a return, and the gap is decided at the plant.
BILS · Chaired · Uwe Gottschalk · Operating Partner, Keensight Capital; former Chief Scientific Officer, Lonza · C-suite. Poised: advises and invests in bioprocess companies on scale. Has carried the scale decision at a global manufacturer and now prices it as an investor.
MEVO · Neta Lavon · Co-Founder and CTO, Aleph Farms · C-suite or VP. Poised: took cultivated beef from the laboratory to regulatory approval. The same plant governance question at food margins, where a failed batch costs a scale up.
13:45
Voices · Technology · 20 min
Acceptance is won on taste, texture and price together.
Acceptance decides which proteins reach the shelf. This provocation asks what is winning the consumer over, and what still holds them back. The regulators opening the fastest route follow.
Announced shortly
14:05
Voices · 20 min
Sandboxes turn approval into a shared route.
The United Kingdom's regulatory sandbox and Abu Dhabi's tasting rules let products meet regulators earlier. This session asks which routes to market are opening fastest, and what they teach the rest. The shelf follows.
Announced shortly
14:25
Voices · 20 min
The shelf rewards products that sell twice.
A retailer gives shelf space to what sells. This session asks what earns a new protein its place, and what keeps it there. Where cultivated protein wins first follows.
Announced shortly
15:15
Voices · 15 min
Cell science reaches market when industries share the room.
Cultivated meat and cell therapy grow the same cells for different markets. Gabor Forgacs, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Fork & Good, asks what the food plant can take from the clinic to win first. Pharmaceutical plants making food protein follow.
15:30
Voices · Collaboration · 15 min
Pharma's fermentation plants are food's fastest route to scale.
Huvepharma, a pharmaceutical group, is quadrupling EVERY's egg protein capacity at its EU and FDA approved fermentation sites. EVERY's orders in the first four months of 2026 reached 550 percent of its 2025 total. This session asks how pharmaceutical plants and food brands scale together, and what each must agree.
Announced shortly
15:45
Voices · 15 min
Repeat purchase, not trial, decides scale.
Trial puts a new protein in the basket once. This session asks what brings the consumer back. The room's commitments follow.
Announced shortly
16:00
Voices · Collaboration · 15 min
Commitments, not intentions.
The room has tested two days of decisions. This session asks what each leader commits to before Berlin closes, and who will hold them to it. The themed tables test the commitment before the Chair's close.
Announced shortly
16:15
Themed discussion · Chatham House Rule · 30 min
The room sets the question and keeps the answer.
The theme comes from the room's own ranked preferences, gathered before the forum.
Announced shortly
16:45
Chair's closing remarks · 15 min
The Chair closes MEVO on what the room carries out of Berlin. What the room commits to here is where MEVO begins next year.
Notes for the room
One
Sessions begin on the printed minute. Plenary lights signal transition. The room respects the programme because the room designed it.
Two
Every name in the room was chosen. The programme is the product of that choice. It is not a conference. It is a conversation with a very specific group of people.
Three
The Circle does not consult. It convenes the people who will decide. What you do with two days of unrecorded, unattributed conversation among your peers is yours to determine.
Curated for
The agenda decides the room. These are the functions the two days are written for.
The functions the agenda is written for
Founder & Chief Executive
Owns the scale decision the first morning opens on, and the runway it has to happen inside.
Head of AI Strategy & Autonomous Operations
Where AI changes the batch, not the slide. Here it meets a cost-per-kilo problem.
Chief Scientific Officer
Holds the line between what the science can do and what the plant can run at volume.
VP Process Engineering
Pilot to plate is an engineering problem long before it is a market one. This is the function that carries it.
Head of Manufacturing & Scale-Up
The first wave was funded to build fermenters. This room is about what those fermenters now have to produce.
Head of Feedstock & Raw Materials
What protein production runs on. Feedstock sets the cost floor and carries the supply risk.
Head of Regulatory Affairs, Novel Foods
The regulatory path determines commercial timing. Not approval in principle. A date.
VP Commercial & Business Development
Where the food system decides whether it wants what has been built. Day two opens on exactly that.
Infrastructure & Growth Investor
The capital cycle that funded the first wave has closed. This is the function deciding what funds the second.
Head of Consumer & Category Insight
What the consumer accepts, and why. Day Two takes it to the brain science of taste.
The organisations in the room
Named on Members as each joins the room.
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What grows. What feeds. Who decides what scales.
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10 and 11 February 2027 · Berlin
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