Cultured Meat: To be feared, or the future?
It goes by many names, from cultured meat or in vitro, even ‘clean’ or slaughter-free, to lab-grown and cell-based meat. Does this ambiguity add to the apprehension that surrounds the emerging mystery product?
To help wrap our heads around what cultured meat is and the future it poses, GMA breaks down the basics, including speaking to an esteemed scientist who is adamant there is “zero threat to farmers”, as we open the conversation around answering…
What is the global meat sector’s stance on cultured meat?
The Basics
Cultured meat is a product made in a laboratory using bioengineering techniques. It is biologically similar to conventional meat, however, it’s not grown on farm.
To ensure it has the same nutritional features, look, texture and flavour as real animal meat, the material is subject to biological steps.
An incredibly complex process, simplistically, there are three steps:
1. Tissue is taken from the animal to extract stem cells and create cell lines.
2. These stem cell lines are then cultivated in a nutrient rich environment that mimics tissue growth in an animal, and muscles fibres are produced inside a bioreactor.
3. The muscle fibres are then processed and mixed with fats and ingredients to finalise the ‘meat’ product
The technology began to emerge in a Netherlands university in the early 2000s, however it wasn’t until 2013 that a Dutch researcher unveiled the world’s first ‘cultured meat’ burger.
Grown in a Maastricht University laboratory, the beef patty took several years to produce at a cost of around AU$400,000.
Credit: Research Gate
When will it be available?
In a recent webinar hosted by the International Meat Secretariat, Dr Jean-François Hocquette said since 2013, research papers and mentions in the media have exponentially increased.
Seven years later, Singaporean authorities gave regulatory approval for the world’s first ‘clean meat’ to be sold for human consumption, and shortly after, the 1880 restaurant in Singapore marked the first commercial sale of the approved cultivated chicken.
While many predictions have been made about when we will see cultured meat on supermarket shelves, and despite tremendous advances in cultured cell technology through the pandemic, concrete dates remain unknown.
Despite hopes from some quarters it would be ready by next year, Professor of Food and Health Johannes le Coutre of the University of New South Wales says it is more likely to be towards the end of the decade.
“I would completely disregard or disagree with the idea of having a competitive shelf-filling proposition in supermarkets within the next one or two years. That is simply not happening because of technology, consumer acceptance, those types of things,” Prof. le Coutre said.
“It will be very expensive, but it will be a viable alternative by the end of this decade. That’s the way I see it.”
During the IMS webinar, Dr Hocquette agreed that too many unknowns remain to make accurate predictions.
Dr Hocquette also noted, a push from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which offered $1 million to anyone able to create a commercially viable artificial meat from growing chicken cells, has since had to be routinely abandoned due to slower than anticipated advancement.
There have been reports that cultured seafood products – not meat – will likely be the first factory-grown animal food product approved for sale in the U.S.
Pros and Cons
There are multiple factors driving increased demand for meat-free protein alternatives: animal welfare, climate change, price and health, among others.
Cultured meat has been sold and seen as a silver bullet to many of these issues, but as GMA reported in this month’s Insights Report, the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems contests some of those.
It published 'The Politics of Protein', which reveals alt-protein sources may not be as environmentally sustainable as their advocates claim.
As Dr Hocquette noted, the jury is still out on cultured meat, but below is a preliminary high-level list of pros and cons from a consumer’s perspective.
Pros:
Enables the provision of meat without having to kill an animal.
Reduction in land use.
Could reduce the impacts of global warming, when produced with renewable energy.
A potential less chance of contamination.
Supply could be expected to remain more protected from drought, floods and insect infestations.
Cons:
The taste may also not live up to the flavour of the ‘real thing’.
Over the long term, environmental impacts could be higher than livestock when considering the gases emitted and energy costs of infrastructure required.
High levels of disposable sterile plastic material waste.
Reduced livestock would lead to reduced recycling of waste that cannot be consumed by humans and produces fertiliser.
Current acceptance levels among consumers are relatively low. Research by the University of Sydney and Curtin University found 72 per cent of Gen Z was not ready to accept cultured meat, even though they were most prominently concerned with environmental and animal welfare.
What does this mean for the global meat sector?
Speaking to GMA, Professor le Coutre, who is quick to quip that he loves a steak, is of the firm belief cultured meat presents tremendous opportunity for, and minimal threat to, farmers.
He says in a growing global population, in vitro will rather fill the required ramp up in food production.
“We are not talking about replacing and transitioning and converting and what have you, we are talking about adding new stuff on top of existing things,” le Coutre said.
“There will be a future with conventional meat… there will be plant-based meat and there will be cell-based meat. There will be these three offerings in the market. On top of that there will be blends and hybrids of any of those.
“There is absolutely zero threat, there is zero, zero, zero threat to farmers. I think farmers should embrace the whole thing.”
Further, as he references a German saying**, “Von nichts kommt nichts”, le Coutre says agricultural produce and supply chains will play a crucial role in cultured meat production.
“There is a law of physics, very clearly, that basically says ‘nothing comes from nothing’,” le Coutre said.
“We need our land, we need our pastures, we need our paddocks, we need all of this in order to produce supply chain for these processes, very clearly. We cannot go somewhere into [Sydney city suburb] Alexandria and supply meat for Sydney, that’s not happening.
“The idea that everything disappears behind closed door manufacturing is absolutely naïve and not realistic. There will also be a need for a strong and massive supply chain in order to drive many of these processes.”
Put simply, it seems there is a future for both cultured and conventionally grown meat, where existing farming infrastructure could even offer further opportunities.
Le Coutre finished with an interesting analogy. When demand (and technology) increased for electric vehicles, existing car manufacturers faced a fork in the roads: they could embrace the technology as part of their future sales or fight it.
Japanese carmaker Nissan’s fully electric Leaf has so far this year accounted for 5.8% (and growing) of all the company’s passenger car sales alone. Leaf sales in the first three months of 2022 were also 49% higher than during the same period last year.
Similarly, the global meat sector faces the same question. And, as le Coutre says, “It is always about opportunity… It is going to happen one way or another and it will need to be embraced.”
**Currently based in Australia, Prof. le Coutre is Swiss-German and has had an esteemed career in food across the globe.