It seems unlikely that we would try to colonize other star systems by sending meat there— meat doesn't keep well over the necessary time scales.

It seems a better plan would be to send artificial intelligence which can remain dormant for hundreds or thousands of years. A planet could be "colonized" by building a data center on it and then running a detailed simulation of a habitable planet. In fact, that would open up far more worlds to colonization, because it substantially loosens the requirements for habitability.

Or if a simulation truly isn't good enough, then an AI could at least bootstrap a biosphere.