Rather than ignoring the threat of plant-based protein, traditional meat companies have hopped on board. Tyson, the largest meat processor in the US, has also invested in lab-grown meat start-ups, Memphis Meats and Future Meat Technologies.

Agribusiness giant, Cargill, the privately held US company, has also invested in Memphis Meats.

California-based Beyond Meat, which is seeking to float on the US stock market and raise $100m, says it wants to create the future of protein but emphasises that plant-based “meat” doesn’t compromise its taste.

For the first nine months of 2018, it had sales of $56m, with almost 50% of sales in the food service sector. It sells products in approximately 11,000 restaurants and foodservice outlets across the United States

It has already raised $100m from the likes of Leonardo Di Caprio, Bill Gates, Tyson, Seth Goldman, and a range of pension funds.

In 2015, Beyond Meat had revenues of $9m.

Two years later, it had sales of $33m in 2017. And for the first nine months of 2018, it had sales of $56m, with almost 50% of sales in the food service sector. It sells products in approximately 11,000 restaurants and foodservice outlets across the United States.

However, the company has never made a profit.

In 2016, it lost $25m and in 2017 it lost $30m, with losses of $22m in the first nine months of 2018.

It attributes this loss to investments in innovation and the growth of the business.

These companies are attracting large sums of investment from high-profile investors and pension funds. Impossible Foods, which was conceived and founded by a prominent Stanford professor, is backed by top-tier venture capitalists and investors.

It has already received funding of over $500m from investors such as Bill Gates and a host of pension funds.

The company produces the Impossible Burger, which is made from plants. The company aims to produce plant-based foods that it claims will “outperform existing meat and dairy products in taste and nutrition, at a lower cost and with a much lower impact on the global environment”.

Another plant protein start-up, Just, formerly known as Hampton Creek, is aiming to bring lab-grown chicken meat to restaurants.

Once valued at $1.1bn, the company has struggled due to poor corporate governance.

Another start-up, Geltorm, which is backed by ADM, raised $18.2m to commercialise lab-grown protein.

ADM also partnered with Perfect Day to produce dairy proteins from sugars rather than from cows.

ADM aims to scale up Perfect Day’s technology and start shipping cow-free dairy ingredients to food businesses in 2019.

Perfect Day describes its product with terms such as lactose-free, cholesterol-free, more food-safe, hormone, antibiotic and steroid-free and earth friendly.