I was happy to learn JBS, the world’s largest slaughtered-meat company, recently entered the nascent cultivated-meat industry.

For those who don’t know, cultivated meat is grown from animal cells, without slaughter. It’s better for the environment, public health and our fellow creatures.

JBS purchased a cellular-agriculture firm, called BioTech Foods. The deal includes $41 million to build a factory capable of producing 1,000 tons of cultivated meat every year. According to Elliot Swartz of the Good Food Institute, this would be 5-10 times the capacity of similar facilities that have been announced.

Despite these promising signs from the private sector, more government investment in research is needed for the industry to flourish. This will help cultivated meat achieve price parity with slaughtered meat and assist development of whole-cut products, like cultivated steaks and fillets. I hope legislators will support this.