The cultured meat company hopes that this experience will become more common. In June, Eat Just and Upside Foods, another California startup, became the first two companies to receive regulatory approval to sell cultured meat in America. A handful of companies are already doing this in Singapore, the first country to allow sales of the stuff in 2020. A herd of rivals rushes after them. All in all, about 160 companies are trying to bring cultured meat to the market.
But it will be a challenge to do that. In America, diners without a press card can find cultured meat in only two restaurants: one in San Francisco and one in Washington, DC. A few years ago the sector was bullish. In 2021, McKinsey estimated that this could grow to $25 billion globally by the end of the decade. That hope is fading amid persistently high costs and problems scaling up production. Most companies are now more focused on the production of hybrid meat, which combines cultivated animal proteins with proteins derived from plants such as soy or wheat. Your correspondent tasted that kind of hybrid dinner with Eat Just.
On paper, cultured meat looks attractive. The UN estimates that meat and dairy production is already responsible for 12% of humanity's greenhouse gas emissions. Demand among the growing middle classes of Africa and Asia is soaring. Lab-grown meat could help meet that demand without busting the world's carbon budget.
In rich countries, on the other hand, many people say they want to reduce their consumption, either for ethical or environmental reasons. (Two-fifths of Americans claim to limit their meat consumption for environmental reasons.) Lab-grown meat may be less ethically concerning for some consumers than eating animals. And the early success of plant-based meat alternatives gave investors hope. Beyond Meat, one such company, went public in 2019 and saw its value rise to $14 billion.
Enthusiasts of barreled meat have come up with all kinds of possible uses beyond chicken. Earlier this year, Vow Food, an Australian start-up, created a 'mammoth meatball', mixing ancient DNA from frozen mammoth remains with that of modern elephants. Wanda Fish Technologies, an Israeli company, is working on farmed bluefin tuna A startup co-founded by Mark Post of Maastricht University, which served up a $300,000 lab-grown hamburger in 2013, is trying to produce leather from barrels.
There are roughly two ways to make cultured meat. Both start with cells derived from livestock or poultry. One option is to place the cells in a stainless steel tank, called a “bioreactor,” which is filled with a nutrient-rich fluid that often, but not always, comes from cow embryos. The cells multiply and after a month or so a meaty slurry can be harvested and processed into minced meat products such as chicken nuggets. The alternative is to place the cells on a scaffold. That encourages them to grow into a certain shape, and is used to make more fibrous meats, such as steaks.
How the sausage is made
The details vary by company. Some, like Eat Just and Upside Foods, start with cells from a chicken embryo. The advantage is that embryonic cells can grow indefinitely in the suspension. But they must be encouraged to follow the desired developmental path, such as forming muscle cells. This is done through genetic engineering or by adding proteins called “growth factors” to the nutrient solution. SciFi Foods, on the other hand, uses cells harvested from the muscle of adult cows. Muscle cells stop growing after a few dozen generations. On the other hand, they stop growing. may require fewer growth factors than embryonic factors, and for some they provide a flavor closer to that of animal flesh.
The details of the nutritional broth also vary, although they all include the basics of amino acids (the building blocks of protein), vitamins and glucose. The precise recipe will affect the final taste of the meat and even how healthy it is to eat.
Every company faces the same two major challenges. The first is the question. Although cultured meat is still a long way from hitting supermarket shelves, its alt-protein cousin, plant-based meat, is going through a difficult period. According to research firm Circana, sales of alternative meat in America peaked at $483 million in 2021. In the 12 months to November this year, they fell 30% on the 2021 figure, to $338 million. Sales are still growing in Europe, albeit slower than before. As momentum has waned, so have investors' opinions of the plant-based superstars. Beyond Meat's value has plummeted to just over $600 million.
The second problem is cost, which may be more difficult to solve. The GFI calculates that plant-based meat can cost about double what a piece of farm meat costs. Cultured meat is even more expensive.
Part of the reason is that the industry is still in its infancy, making equipment expensive. Some progress has already been made. In the early days, most companies used growth solutions with ultra-pure, pharmaceutical-grade ingredients. Switching to agricultural-quality ingredients can reduce these costs by up to 90%, says Elliot Swartz, an analyst at GFI. Yet the cost of cultured meat is still about five times higher than that of farm meat.
Companies are trying to get that number down. Amy Chen, chief operating officer at Upside Foods, says her company has found cells that do not require external growth factors, significantly reducing costs. The aptly named Gustavo Burger, the boss of Believer Meat, an Israeli company, claims to have reduced the cost of the growing solution to less than $1 per liter, much lower than most other companies pay. (One of Believer Meat's innovations is recycling much of the solution). Another strategy, Mr. Burger says, is to make arrangements with suppliers to provide pre-mixed nutrients for the solution.
Meat producers hope costs can be further reduced as a new supply chain takes shape. Some of this involves existing companies, such as ADM, an agricultural giant that has started supplying the ingredients for growth solutions. New participants with custom-made equipment have also emerged. Multus Biotechnology, a British company, also sells solution ingredients. NewDay Farms, a Chinese company, produces the scaffolding that helps cells form as they grow.
Questions have been raised about how climate-friendly cultured meat can be. A study published earlier this year by researchers at the University of California, Davis, found that cultured meat could be more polluting than conventional meat under certain conditions. Industry advocates have responded that the assumptions about the type of growth solution used are inaccurate. In particular, they say the research assumes the use of raw material-intensive pharmaceutical-grade ingredients, which the industry is moving away from.
But even fans of cultured meat acknowledge that the technology will require a lot of energy. Another study published in January by researchers from CE Delft, a consultancy firm, and the GFI, found that meat produced is likely to use much more energy per kilogram than farm-raised protein. This is largely because the bioreactor requires a lot of power to regulate the temperature. As a result, cultured meat will only reduce the meat industry's carbon footprint if renewable energy is used in the production process. And even then, according to the study, this will only be the case for pork and beef.
Whether all these efforts can make lab-grown meat attractive and cheap enough to appeal to consumers remains to be seen. Many companies have now decided to follow a hybrid strategy, in which they mix (relatively) cheap vegetable proteins with their cultivated animal cells. Some companies, like Mission Barns, another California-based company, add just a small amount of animal fat cells to plant proteins to improve the taste of, say, a sausage. For others, such as Eat Just, the share of cultured meat will be much higher. “It took me a while to get comfortable with it [moving to the hybrid approach]. Because it feels a bit like we're making a compromise,” admits Josh Tetrik, Eat Just's boss.
© 2023, The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. From The Economist, published under license. Original content can be found at www.economist.com