Just five years ago, Uma Valeti, a cardiologist, Nicholas Genovese, an oncologist, and Will Clem, a biomedical engineer, quit their jobs to start Upside Foods in Berkeley. They developed a biological process to grow synthetic meat products by taking stem cells from animals and eggs; feeding those cells nutrients, carbohydrates, minerals, fats, and vitamins; and speeding up their growth in a bioreactor. Using this technique, Upside Foods has been able to produce beef, duck, and chicken at scale.

Like another California-based startup, Eat Just, which recently launched cell-culture chicken in Singapore, Upside Foods plans to sell its chicken products in supermarkets across the U.S. by the end of 2021—the first step in synthetic biology’s disruption of the $320 billion global poultry industry. Meanwhile, other startups—such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods—are rapidly growing the plant-based meats business, whose sales are projected to surge by around 20% a year, on average, to cross $12 billion by 2025.

Almost unnoticed, the synthetic biology (syn-bio, for short) revolution has begun, and is gathering real momentum. Like Upside Foods and Impossible Foods, dozens of startups are using syn-bio technologies to create new processes and products, from fabrics, flavors, foods, and fuels, to dyes, cosmetics, spices, and even data storage—in addition to, of course, blockbuster drugs. The upstarts are bioengineering products that are more durable; are sustainable, because they consume fewer resources such as land and water; generate less waste; and are usually healthier.

Many syn-bio products are competitively priced, while others command premiums because of their durability or lower environmental impact. Investors have been pouring money into the industry; the rate of investment has been growing by 40% year on year for five years now. According to our analysis at BCG Henderson Institute, to be published in September, synthetic biology could disrupt industries that account for as much as 30% of global GDP—or $28 trillion—by 2030.

Interestingly, after a long hiatus, syn-bio innovation is unfolding at an unexpectedly rapid pace, with the food, health, and beauty industries, among others, already feeling the winds of change. New genome-editing technologies, such as Crispr-Cas9, are enabling the creation of novel DNA combinations. They are also reducing the costs of DNA editing and increasing the length of DNA strands that can be replicated without errors. In addition, the viability of cell-free biology has improved, allowing companies to use metabolic cell processes that don’t need live cells and make lab testing faster and less complex.