Clean Meat: 10 solved questions to understand it better

1.?What is clean meat?

Also known as lab-grown meat, cultured meat, or in vitro meat, it refers to meat that has grown in cell cultures instead of in an animal’s body (AOCS, 2018).

?From all terms, “clean meat” is the one manufacturers prefer to use. To begin with, growing cells in a laboratory environment reduces some microbiological risks associated with intensive farming practices, so “clean meat” can actually be cleaner and safer. In addition, starting cells are taken painlessly from live animals, making the practice more ethical and thus, “cleaner”.

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2. ?How sustainable is it?

?Compared to conventionally produced European meat, clean meat could reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions by 78-96%. It also requires between 7 and 45% less energy to be produced use, except for poultry that has a lower energy use.?In addition, it requires 99% less land and 82-96% less water (Tuomisto Et al. 2011).

In an overall look, the transportation and refrigeration needs for cultured meat are likely to be less because whole animals are not transported nor stocked (Lynch, 2019). However, there is still much research to do before estimating that cultured meat is environmentally more sustainable. The whole process from the production to the consumer will have to be considered and analyzed once?industrialization becomes a reality.

?3. When did it start and how did the market evolve?

?In 2013, the BBC published that researchers in London had successfully made the first lab-grown beef burger from cow cells. But the first one was costly to make: over $300,000 at the time!

?A few years later, in 2018, Memphis Meats, which had made its ground beef in a lab, priced a quarter pound of it at $600 (Smith, 2019).?

?A year later, in August 2019, five startups announced the formation of the Alliance for Meat, Poultry & Seafood Innovation (AMPS Innovation), a coalition seeking to create a pathway to a market for cultured meat and seafood (Evich, 2019).

?In May 2020, the Vegconomist published that a company called Peace of Meat was able to produce 20 grams of cultured fat at a cost of about 300 euros (€15,000/kg), with the goal of reducing the price to 6 euros per kilogram by 2030.

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4.?What about the nutritional composition?

There is also the potential to create clean meat with additional health benefits by altering cell culture conditions or types of cells. In this way, clean meat could be fortified with beneficial fatty acids, such as the omega-3s found in fatty cold-water fish. Also, saturated fats could be replaced with polyunsaturated fats. Likewise, antibiotics, pathogens or microplastics wouldn’t be part of the meat.

?5.?How is it done? Is it vegan?

?As explained in Merk Group’s website, cultured meat could be simplified into 4 steps:

1. ?A small tissue sample is taken from an animal via biopsy.
2. Cells are isolated and cultured at lab scale.
3. Cells are grown and transformed at a larger scale in bioreactors.
4. Cell mass is processed and formed into burgers

Credit: Merck. (2019)

?Depending on what kind of meat is being cultivating, this process should take 2 to 8 weeks.

?So no, it is not vegan as it has ingredients from animal origin.

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6.?What type of cells are selected as starter cells?

The starting cell type could range from embryonic stem cells to fully differentiated muscle cells. Although embryonic stem cells proliferate the fastest, they can be difficult to isolate and direct toward differentiation into a specific cell type. On the other hand, fully developed muscle cells have already been differentiated into the desired cell type, but they don’t proliferate that much.

Therefore, most companies are using satellite cells: adult stem cells that proliferate in an acceptable frequency and are the cells responsible for muscle regeneration after an injury (AOCS, 2018).

7.???What are the current biggest challenges?

?Like any true innovation project, clean meat requires investment and sources to develop this new product. The top 3 challenges to do so are:?

a)?????Growth Medium / Culture Media: Satellite cells require very high concentrations of media for growth, so it’s crucial to develop one that is cost-effective and free from animal ingredients. Why free from animals? Well, if clean meat is successful, bovine serum will be obsolete. Even though this is the most common practice, researchers are currently working in finding a non-animal substitute (Post, 2014).

?b)?????Scaffold: To produce three-dimensional in-vitro meat, it is necessary to have a scaffold. Researchers are currently working in many aspects of tissue engineering to simulate the stretching that muscle cells undergo as a living creature moves around (Future Food, 2020).

?c)?????Scale up: Clean meat factories would likely resemble beer breweries, with giant tanks for growing meat like beer fermentation tanks. Furthermore, an average of the volume and timings needed would be the following one run in a 20,000-L bioreactor would require about 1 month from first step to fourth (The Good Food Institute, 2017). Therefore, researchers are working in improving the efficiency of the materials and processes to decrease the time of the life-cycle and the volumes of production.

?8. How is fat added?

?Clean meat prototypes have lacked meaty fat, which is considered necessary since fat imparts flavor, aroma, and texture to meat.

?Researchers are working to add adipose-tissue-derived stem cells, which can be differentiated into adipocytes, either together or separate from satellite cells. This technology is currently being developed, but it is highly probable we soon see it in clean meat, as in a study published in Food Navigator, 68% of the cultured meat companies reported they would be likely to use cultivated fat if it improves textures and mouthfeel (Morrison, 2020).

However, nowadays, the most common practice is to add plant-based fats into clean meat, as it is much more efficient to incorporate (The Good Food institute, 2017).

?9. What will the clean meat industry growth be?

As food industry evolves and a part of it transitions from the “mainstream” meat industry to alternative meat industries, the current financial potential of clean meat is estimated to be 15,5m $, rising to 20m $ by 2027 (FAIR, 2020)

Credit: Reuters (2018)

?10. What is the consumer acceptance?

Until now, it seems there are significant differences in the consumer acceptance between countries.

Around 44% of French and 58% of German answers said they would try clean meat, but the numbers decrease to 28% in Australia. Additionally, 37% of the French people and 56% of Germans asked said they would buy it themselves (Southey, 2021).

Who am I?

I am Mei, and I am a professional Food Technologist with over 6 years of experience in the food industry. I specialize in identifying innovative food solutions in line with changing market dynamics worldwide. Not only that, but I am passionate about flavor and tastes and write articles to facilitate learning about this incredible and extensive world!

References

?BBC News. (2013, August 5). World’s first lab-grown burger is eaten in London. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-23576143

Clean meat. (2018, February). American Oil Chemists Society. https://www.aocs.org/stay-informed/inform-magazine/featured-articles/clean-meat-february-2018?SSO=True

Cultured meat is revolutionizing the food industry | Merck. (2019). Merk Group. https://www.merckgroup.com/en/research/science-space/envisioning-tomorrow/scarcity-of-resources/cleanmeat.html

FAIRR Initiative. (2020, November 9). Clean Meat – Investor Information | FAIRR Initiative. FAIRR. https://www.fairr.org/article/clean-meat/

Future Food - In Vitro Meat. (2020). Future Food. https://www.futurefood.org/in-vitro-meat/index_en.php

Evich, H. B. (2019, August 29). Cell-based meat companies join forces. POLITICO. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/29/cell-based-meat-companies-join-1689710

Lynch, J. (2019). Climate Impacts of Cultured Meat and Beef Cattle. Frontiers. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2019.00005/full

Morrison, O. (2020, December 15). Cultivated fat: a solution to the plant-based sensory gap? Foodnavigator.Com. https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2020/12/15/Cultivated-fat-a-solution-to-the-plant-based-sensory-gap

Peace of Meat: Belgian Startup Aims to Transform a $163 Billion Dollar Industry With Cultured Fats. (2020, March 30).?Vegconomist - the Vegan Business Magazine. https://vegconomist.com/companies-and-portraits/peace-of-meat-belgian-startup-aims-to-transform-a-163-billion-dollar-industry-with-cultured-fats/

The Good Food Institute. (2017, June). OPPORTUNITIES IN CLEAN MEAT. https://gfi.org/images/uploads/2017/06/Mapping-Emerging-Industries.pdf

Tuomisto, H. L., & Teixeira De Mattos, M. J. (2011). Environmental Impacts of Cultured Meat Production. Environmental Science & Technology, 45(14), 6117–6123. https://doi.org/10.1021/es200130u

Post, M. J. (2014). An alternative animal protein source: cultured beef. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1328(1), 29–33. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.12569

Southhey, F. (2021, May 5). Do consumers want to eat cultivated meat, fat and dairy? Foodnavigator.Com. https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2021/05/05/Consumer-acceptance-of-cultivated-meat-fat-and-dairy

Smith, J. (2019, October 10). Lab-Grown Meat Created on the ISS. Guardian Liberty Voice. https://guardianlv.com/2019/10/lab-grown-meat-created-on-the-iss/

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