The world’s largest animal cloning factory will be built in Tianjin at a cost of 200 million yuan ($31.3 million) and begin operations in the first half of next year.

The 14,000 square-meter facility will supply China’s growing demand for beef, and will be able to clone animals with specialized abilities, like sniffer dogs or race horses, as well as be able to save critically endangered species from extinction.

BoyaLife chief executive Xu Xiaoshun emphasized the historic nature of his company. “We are going [down] a path that no one has ever traveled,” said Xu. “This is going to change our world and our lives,” adding that such “extremely important” technology could possibly help the giant panda from being an endangered species.

The facility plans to begin by providing 100,000 cloned cow embryos a year, eventually reaching 1 million in phase two. The cloned cattle are expected to lower the cost of beef, which has tripled in price between 2010 and 2013.

However, there are questions over whether the Chinese public, which has faced a number of food scandals, will eat cloned beef.

“Beef from cloned cattle is safe to eat,” said Northwest A & F University veterinary medicine professor Zhang Yong, while Xu was heard telling reports at a conference call, “I can tell you, cloned beef is the tastiest beef I’ve had!”

With animals having been cloned in China for 14 years, a Shenzhen-based company called BGI was creating cloned pigs at an “industrial level”, reported the BBC last year.

Last April, a global outcry was raised when Chinese scientists attempted to edit human embryos’ genomes as a way to prevent or cure genetic disorders.