Following on from World Environment Day (5th June), the 18th June is UN’s World Sustainable Gastronomy Day, with a focus on providing our food in a way that is not wasteful of our natural resources and can be continued into the future without being detrimental to our environment or health. Cultured meat has positive implications for both sustainable farming and the environment, and stands at an exciting intersection of cutting-edge tissue engineering technology and real-world, non-medical applications. As of July 2024, the UK has become the first European country to approve putting lab-grown meat in pet food. In this blog, we will walk you through how cultured meat is made, the challenges the industry faces and its current place in the wider world.
What is cultured meat?
Cultured meat is a cell-based alternative to conventional meat with the aim of resembling the texture, flavor and nutritional value. Advancements in biotechnological methods have led to the culture of animal cells directly, to form animal meat or seafood products, at large-scale without the need for animal slaughter. Therefore, this could offer the ability to generate greater global food security in a more environmentally friendly way. The sustainability benefits of cultured meat include, but are not limited to, the potential to be less resource-intensive as well as decreasing air pollution, deforestation, water use, water contamination, biodiversity loss, antibiotic resistance and foodborne illnesses.
What challenges does the industry face?
Cell source
The manufacturing of cultured meat is based on tissue engineering processes. This starts with identifying a suitable source of cells that can differentiate into muscle and fat cells. Most commonly this is through using primary cells (multipotent) isolated from tissues of livestock animals, but alternatively pluripotent stem cells can be differentiated into muscle/fat specific cell types. Conditions have to be optimised based on the cell type due to different proliferation and differentiation capabilities, as primary cells are often less stable over extended periods of cell culture.
A study by Kalkehi et al. (2023) discussed the implications of using primary cells which required the repeated harvest of cells from different animal sources. The study was able to overcome this challenge by successful cryopreservation of bovine myogenic cells in CELLBANKER® media which maintained cell quality for downstream production of cultured meat products.
Culture media and matrix
Another important component is the culture media and matrix for support of cell growth and differentiation. A study by Takahashi and colleagues (2022) demonstrated the efficiency of iMatrix-511 Laminin E8 fragments for the adherence of bovine myogenic cells extracted from bovine meat and their differentiation into myotubes. Using micropatterned culture substrates to form a scaffold, the myotubes can then be aligned into myofibers that mimic the structure of native muscle tissue.
A number of studies have combined cells with biomaterials, such as scaffolds and bioprinting, to create an end-product more closely resembling the structure of conventional meat. These bio-structures have to be edible, biocompatible, easily processed and sustainable for development into manufacturing. Bioprinting is an automated process for the placement of cell aggregates/cell-matrix into highly structured formats. Bioprinting continues to be under development within the industry with the use of progenitor cells (adipocytes and myocytes) which can be stacked to form sheets of muscle myoblasts, which in turn can then be used to form muscle tissues. These automated systems are ideal for large-scale production of cultured meat products and the development of this technology is essential in order to mimic the native nutritious value and texture of meat for consumption.
Manufacturing
Cultured meat is currently not available widespread for customers to buy in shops which is partially due to the bottleneck of successful upscaling for processing cultured meat products to meet high demands. To be able to achieve this, the conditions need to be optimised for cells to grow in bioreactors over prolonged culture and high density. Further research is undergoing to decipher the optimal combination of cellular source, growth media, bioprocesses and biomaterials to overcome this challenge. All materials and procedures must also follow strict regulations under GMP and FDA approval to make sure the end product is safe for consumption. The major challenge faced in manufacturing is the high cost of this large-scale production, therefore standardisation of procedures and automated processes are needed to reduce costs in the future.
Cultured meat in the wider world
Legalization and availability
In 2020, Singapore became the first country in the world to approve cultivated meat for sale. 2023 was a milestone year for the advancement of cultivated meat with the approval of two companies, GOOD Meat and Upside Foods, to sell lab-grown meat to restaurants in the United States. In July 2023, the Netherlands became the first European country to allow cultivated meat and seafood tasting. However, customers are still unable to buy cultivated meat in Europe, with regulatory approval unlikely within the next year.
In order to achieve this status, cultured meat has passed approval processes demonstrating an ability to provide a safe and sustainable option for meat production in the future. In Europe, many governments have regulatory frameworks in place for the assessment and authorization of cultured meat, but first these regulatory approvals must be met. In the Netherlands, legally approved tastings of cultivated meat began in 2023, providing the opportunity to provide feedback on the taste of the product before submission for regulatory approval. As of January 2024, Israel became the third country to advance the approval of cultivated meat sales.
The UK has now become the first European country (as of July 2024) to approve putting lab-grown meat in pet food. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has supported this move in order to meet the current demand in pet food and continue to closely monitor new products coming onto the market. There has been less public debate around the issue in the UK than in some countries, which could be partly due to the approval only being granted for pet food rather than consumption by people.
Opposition
The emerging challenge for the cultured meat industry is the opposition faced in legalization. In 2024, Florida governor Ron DeSantis announced the potential ban on cell-cultivated meat with other states such as Alabama, Arizona and Tennessee debating similar legislations. There are also public concerns that it is an unnatural ‘man-made’ product and may not taste exactly like traditional meat, and other issues arise from the livestock sector due to the potential loss of farm animals, jobs within traditional animal farming and the different skills required of workers in the cultured meat industry. Lastly, it raises issues in terms of religion with considerations needed by religious authorities, such as its status with regard to classifications like kosher or halal, or indeed where it sits with regard to ethical consumption.
Ultimately, even with concerns above, the international interest in the cultivated meat industry continues to grow, with further investments helping to advance towards achieving global manufacturing of cultured meat products, leading to an exciting time ahead.
Author: Bethany James, Ph.D.
This article was originally published on the website of AMSBIO.
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References
Kakehi, R., Yoshida, A., Takahashi, H. and Shimizu, T. (2023). Frontiers in sustainable food systems, 7. doi:https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2023.1023057.
Citing CELLBANKER 1 and iMatrix Recombinant Laminin 511-E8 fragments
Harvest of quality-controlled bovine myogenic cells and biomimetic bovine muscle tissue engineering for sustainable meat production.
Takahashi, H., Yoshida, A., Gao, B., Yamanaka, K., & Shimizu, T. (2022), Biomaterials, 287, 121649.
Citing iMatrix Recombinant Laminin 511-E8 fragments.
2023 State of the Industry Report: Cultivated meat and seafood
Good Food Institute, (2023)
The Science of Cultivated Meat Good Food Institute, (2021) and Cultivated meat Good Food Institute (2024)
Ex-ante life cycle assessment of commercial-scale cultivated meat production in 2030
Sinke, P., Swartz, E., Sanctorum, H. et al. (2023). Int J Life Cycle Assess 28, 234–254. doi.org/10.1007/s11367-022-02128-8
Advances and Challenges in Cell Biology for Cultured Meat
Martins, B., Bister, A., Richard G.J. Dohmen, Maria Ana Gouveia, Hueber, R., Melzener, L., Messmer, T., Papadopoulos, J., Pimenta, J., Raina, D., Lieke Schaeken, Shirley, S., Bouchet, B.P. and Flack, J.E. (2023). Annual Review of Animal Biosciences, 12(1). doi.org/10.1146/annurev-animal-021022-055132.
How biofabrication can accelerate cultured meat’s path to market
Heine, S., Ahlfeld, T., Albrecht, F.B. et al. (2024) Nat Rev Mater 9, 83–85. doi.org/10.1038/s41578-024-00650-9
‘Political efforts’: the Republican states trying to ban lab-grown meat | Republicans | The Guardian
Lab-grown meat in pet food: UK to allow sales of Meatly product – BBC News