Cultivated food: from lab grown burgers to medicinal berries
2024-07-20
The Future of Food: Cultivated Meat and Lab-Grown Alternatives Revolutionize the Industry
The world of food is undergoing a remarkable transformation, as innovative technologies are paving the way for a more sustainable and ethical future. From cultivated meat to lab-grown alternatives, the landscape of what we consume is rapidly evolving, offering new possibilities for both human and animal welfare. This article delves into the cutting-edge advancements that are poised to reshape the food industry, exploring the potential benefits and challenges of these groundbreaking developments.
Redefining the Future of Meat and Seafood
Cultivated Meat: A Sustainable Alternative
The pet food industry in the UK is set to become the first in Europe to introduce cultivated meat, a revolutionary product grown from chicken cells in a laboratory. This innovative approach promises to alleviate some of the ethical and environmental concerns associated with traditional animal-based meat production. Beyond the pet food market, a diverse array of lab-grown dishes, from "cell coffee" to lab-grown oyster meat, are on the horizon, poised to transform the human food landscape.The journey towards cultivated meat began a decade ago with the unveiling of the world's first lab-grown burger, which carried a staggering price tag of £215,000. Since then, the industry has witnessed a surge of venture capital investment, and McKinsey predicts a global valuation of billion (£19.3 billion) for the cultivated meat industry by 2030.The process of creating meat in a lab involves taking a biopsy of animal muscle or fat stem cells and multiplying them indefinitely in a nutrient-rich broth. These matured cells are then seeded into a 3D scaffold to form a solid piece of meat. While the first wave of products, including chicken nuggets and beef steaks, have already been approved for sale in the US, Singapore, and Israel, the challenge of affordability remains. A scotch egg with lab-grown meat, created by Fortnum and Mason, is said to have cost tens of pounds to produce, raising questions about whether consumers, particularly meat lovers, will be willing to pay premium prices for these alternatives.Another hurdle faced by the industry is the phasing out of the use of fetal bovine serum, a blood product extracted in a grisly process at slaughterhouses, which has been an ideal nutrient for cell growth but undermines the ethical arguments for cultivated meat. However, progress has been made, and some recently approved products have utilized lab methods that avoid the use of serum.Professor David Kaplan, the director of a million center for cell-cultivated meat at Tufts University, acknowledges the significant challenges in scaling up cultivated meat technology as a sustainable alternative to current meat production. Despite these obstacles, he remains optimistic, noting that the costs for the process have been reduced by orders of magnitude as research and development have advanced.
Addressing the Seafood Sustainability Crisis
Overfishing is an escalating global problem, with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization estimating a 28 million-tonne gap between the demand for seafood and the available supply. Additionally, concerns over plastic and heavy metal contamination have emerged as pressing food safety issues.To address these challenges, a €7 million (£6 million) EU research project, Fostering European Cellular Agriculture for Sustainable Transition Solutions (Feasts), is focused on developing cell lines for the production of salmon, sea bass, oysters, and other seafood products. A key focus of the project is improving efficiency through an "elite breeding program" approach, where researchers identify cells that efficiently produce muscle and fat with desired nutritional properties.Dr. Frederico Castelo Ferreira, the coordinator of the Feasts project and the founder of a startup developing the first cultivated octopus product, emphasizes the importance of genetics in this endeavor. "Genetics does matter," he states, explaining that certain cell variants have more muscle, a principle that applies not only to cows but also to fish.
Cultivating the Future of Coffee, Chocolate, and Exotic Fruits
The environmental impacts of traditional coffee and cocoa farming extend far beyond their carbon footprint, including issues such as water use, deforestation, and biodiversity loss. Furthermore, the effects of climate change have led to drastic reductions in supply, with the cost of cocoa doubling in just a few months at the start of this year. Experts estimate that half of the land used to grow coffee could be unproductive by 2050 due to the climate crisis.In response to these challenges, researchers are exploring the potential of lab-grown plant products, including coffee, cocoa, and exotic berries with potential medicinal properties. Dr. Emilia Nordlund, of VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, a state-owned company focused on these innovations, acknowledges that these are "luxurious products that we don't need to survive, but it's nice to have coffee and chocolate."The cultivation process for these plant-based alternatives is relatively quick and simple, taking only a week or two, compared to the several weeks required for animal cells. However, questions remain about whether the environmental benefits of these lab-grown products are truly sustainable, as the cells still need to be fed with sugar, which is typically grown in a field.VTT has successfully produced "cell coffee," which is harvested as a "uniform cell mass," dried, and then roasted to achieve the desired brown color. While a professional sensory panel has provided feedback on the taste, describing it as having "notes of coffee" and containing the expected caffeine, the researchers acknowledge that it may not be the "best coffee" yet.
Revolutionizing the Dairy Industry
The plant-based milk market has already established a significant presence, with the dairy alternatives worth £2.5 billion in western Europe in 2020-21, according to Euromonitor. Now, a new wave of companies is looking to expand the alternative dairy market even further, with the development of lab-grown dairy products.Many of these companies are focused on reproducing milk components like whey and casein by inserting the genetic code for various milk proteins into bacteria. The bacteria are then fermented, churning out bio-identical versions of these proteins. One Silicon Valley startup, Perfect Day, is using this approach to produce milk, yogurt, cream cheese, and ice cream.Going a step further, other companies are aiming to cultivate milk-producing cells taken directly from mammals, turning the liquid into milk. The Israel-based company Wilk, which has investment from Danone, is producing both human and cow milk using this direct cell cultivation method.As the alternative dairy market continues to evolve, these innovative approaches are poised to disrupt the traditional dairy industry, offering consumers a wider range of choices and potentially addressing some of the environmental and ethical concerns associated with conventional dairy production.