Lab-grown meat, which can also be referred to as cultivated or cultured meat, is real meat that’s grown directly from animal cells. According to Eric Schuzle, the vice-president of product and regulation at UPSIDE Foods, these products are “real meat, made without the need to raise and slaughter animals.”

Cultivated meat may sound like a thing of the future, but it’s closer to reaching supermarket shelves than you might think. In fact, the first piece of lab-grown meat hit the world stage in 2013 when a team at the University of Maastricht presented the first hamburger produced by bovine stem cells. At the time, this original burger cost more than $300,000 to create. But researchers found that two years later, they were able to reduce the cost to $11.36. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the world population will surpass 9.1 billion by 2050, at which point agricultural systems will not be able to supply enough food to feed everyone. But could lab-grown meat help fill this void? Here’s what we know so far. According to researchers in the Journal of Integrative Agriculture, lab-grown meat is made by using the more-than-100-year-old technique of in vitro muscle tissue growth.

“The process of making cultivated meat is similar to brewing beer, in that this is an industrial cell culture process based upon well-hewn fermentation technology,” says Schuzle. “However, instead of growing yeast or bacteria, we grow animal cells. We start by taking a small amount of cells from high-quality livestock animals, like a cow or chicken, and then figure out which of those cells have the ability to multiply and form delicious meat food products. “From there, we put the cells in a clean-and-controlled environment and provide them with the essential nutrients they need to naturally replicate and mature. In essence, we can recreate the conditions that naturally exist inside an animal’s body so that the cells can continue growing. Once the meat is ready, we harvest it, process it like conventional meat products, and then package, cook or otherwise prepare it for consumption.”

Schuzle adds: “We’re excited about this as a new way to produce meat because our cells can continue growing many times over as compared to those in the animal. In effect, we can grow many animals from the cells of just one animal for many years to come.”

Source: https://www.livescience.com/

The protein sector is at a crossroads. On the one hand, global demand for animal protein has never been higher. On the other, meat and dairy already have an outsized hoofprint on the world’s farmlands. And with the climate crisis devastating natural and agricultural resources, we know the Earth’s ecosystems cannot support an expanded traditional agricultural sector. Plant-based protein has experienced rapid growth but is dwarfed by the size of the global meat protein market.

Enter cellular agriculture. Every day brings news of new venture capital funding, adding over US$9.7 billion in global investments. Cellular agriculture encompasses a raft of technologies and approaches that manufacture food and other products normally sourced from plants and animals including: dairy proteins, egg proteins, chocolate, honey, red meat, poultry, seafood, leather, silk and ingredients including sweeteners and flavourings. Cellular agriculture entered the public eye in 2013 when tissue engineering researcher Mark Post produced the first test-tube burger. This prototype cost hundreds of thousands of dollars but today, the same patty can be made for about 10 euros, or $15. In the past two years, dozens of companies have sprung up in Singapore, Israel and California to develop consumer products almost biologically identical to those traditionally sourced from plants and animals.

A few products are already in restaurants and on supermarket shelves. The cellular agriculture dairy company Perfect Day brews dairy proteins in bioreactors using yeast, much like a craft brewer produces beer. One of the largest plant-based food companies, Impossible Foods, uses cellular derived soy heme in its signature burger. Their Whoppers are for sale at Burger King and they have just raised a further US$500 million in investment capital to scale up production. The food-tech startup Eat Just mixes chicken proteins produced through cellular agriculture with plant-based ingredients to create an analogue to a chicken nugget.

Some current cellular agriculture technologies involve animal-based inputs such as stem cells and growth media. These products are not necessarily vegetarian, and so may not be universally accepted by consumers for cultural, religious or dietary reasons. That said, there is a huge potential to reduce water consumption, energy use, land use and greenhouse gases. While there are debates as the extent of the hoped-for environmental benefits, optimists are betting on the fact that carefully designed bioreactors using renewable energy will be more sustainable than a lot of the world’s livestock systems.

https://theconversation.com/

Protein is what’s for dinner, but only if the world’s biggest food companies can keep up. The rise in global appetites for everything from meat to beans and peas is creating what experts call a “perfect storm” for environmental concern, as farmers must increasingly crank out more food with less land and water.

A new startup has one possible solution. called Sustainable Bioproducts, the company sources protein from ingredients found deep inside an unlikely source: the searing volcanic hot springs in Yellowstone National Park. To make the product, the company brews it up using a process similar to that used to make beer.

What comes out, explained CEO Thomas Jonas , is a neutral-tasting, naturally high-protein substance that can either be mixed into yogurt for an alternative to the Greek variety or shaped into patties for the next plant-based burger. Plus, the startup’s product is naturally rich in some of the same key amino acids that the body needs to function. Often found in animal products like eggs, these protein building blocks are especially tough to procure from a vegan or vegetarian diet.

“What we have here is a super protein,” Jonas said. “And it comes from one of the most pristine wild places on the planet.”

On Monday, the startup launched publicly with $33 million in funds from Silicon Valley-based venture firm 1955 Capital and the venture arms of two leading global food suppliers — grain company Archer Daniels Midland and multinational food producer Danone. Based in Chicago, the startup is using the funds to build a production plant and cook up several prototype products.

Key to the startup’s operation, Jonas said, is that it will require a fraction of the natural resources needed for making other proteins like meat and nuts. In place of wasteful factory farms or large parcels of land, all they need, according to Jonas, is essentially a series of brewer’s vats. The company’s core technology is the process it uses to ferment a set of unique microorganisms first discovered in Yellowstone by Montana State University scientist Mark Kozubal nearly a decade ago. Now serving as the startup’s chief science officer, Kozubal came across the organisms as part of a research project supported by grants from the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, and NASA. Sustainable Bioproducts also independently received grants from all three organizations.

Source: https://www.sustainablebioproducts.com/
AND
https://www.businessinsider.com/

 Tyson Foods (TSN.N), the largest U.S. meat processor, has invested in an Israeli biotech company developing a way to grow affordable meat in a laboratory that takes live animals out of the equation.

Future Meat Technologies focuses on producing fat and muscle cells that are the core building blocks of meat, and is one of several firms working on technology to match rising demand for meat without adding more pressure on land from livestock. The firm’s founder and chief scientist, Yaakov Nahmias, said cultured meat typically had a production price of about $10,000 per kg but so far his company had reduced that to $800/kg and had “a clear roadmap to $5–$10/kg by 2020.” Tyson’s venture capital arm has supported the Jerusalem-based startup by co-leading $2.2 million in seed investment.

“We continue to invest significantly in our traditional meat business but also believe in exploring additional opportunities for growth that give consumers more choices,” said Justin Whitmore, Tyson’s executive vice president for corporate strategy. In December, Tyson raised its stake in plant-based protein maker Beyond Meat. Demand for meat is expected to double between 2000 and 2050, when the earth’s population is set to surpass 9 billion, and proponents of growing meat in the lab say it is the only way to meet such demand without destroying the environment.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/