What Does 2022 Look Like for Cellular Agriculture?

Hitting scalability milestones, the growing support of Big Food companies, and exciting new areas for investors to cultivate industry growth indicate a promising start to the year.?

In 1931, Winston Churchill floated the idea of a future where we would grow only the required parts of an animal for meat. That meant doing away with the time and resources needed for growing extraneous parts not popularly consumed.

8 decades later, Dutch Scientist Mark Post unveiled the world’s first cultivated beef patty made from the stem cells of a cow. It cooked and sizzled just like any regular beef patty, but its price tag—a whopping $280,000—was not at all ordinary. But instead of accepting that obstacle as a reality, entrepreneurs threw their weight behind this brand new possibility of sustainable food production.

In the mere 9 years that havefollowed since Post’s patty, there are now more than 50 companies tackling cultivated products spanning meat, dairy, and even solely animal fat.?

Mark Posting unveiling the world's first cultivated beef patty. Photo: GFI

With more companies and investors having skin in the game, the price of cultivated meat has dropped dramatically from $280,000 to $1.70 for a chicken breast. Predictions also point to price parity with conventional meats being reached by 2030 at $5.66/kg. Meanwhile, demand for cultivated meat has also been forecasted to outpace plant-based and conventional meats at a 41% CAGR, reaching $600 billion in market share by 2040 .?

What else could be on the horizon?

From Lab to Table

Hitting scalability milestones looks set to be the theme for cellular agriculture in 2022. 2021 saw numerous companies welcoming fresh rounds of investments, with funding priorities notably relegated to commercialization.

Perfect Day’s $350 million Series D funding will see the animal-free dairy company launching 20 more products this year on top of their existing commercial line of ice creams and cream cheese. On the meat side of things, Aleph Farms’ $105 million Series B round will propel it towards its initial market launch this year, while Future Meat Technologies' $347 million Series B funding will help the company establish a large-scale production facility in the US. With commercial milestones being hit, it’s likely to create a cyclical effect of attracting yet more sizable investments.???

2022 will also potentially see more Big Food companies joining the cellular agriculture race via acquisitions or partnerships. Nestlé, the biggest food company in the world, has already partnered with Future Meat Technologies to explore producing cultivated meat. JBS Foods, aka the world’s largest meat processor, has plans to bring cultivated meat to the market by 2024 through its acquisition of Spanish cell-based meat company BioTech Foods.

Eat Just's cultivated chicken products are making strides in the Singapore market. Photo: GFI

And on the regulatory front, Eat Just has received the go-ahead to sell new types of cultivated chicken products in Singapore. The market is filled with expectations that the first cultivated seafood products will soon be approved in the US with Israel, the UAE, and Qatar following suit to meet food security targets.?

As a whole, these developments point towards the industry’s sure-footed move towards scalability. It’s also encouraging to see companies like Mosa Meat taking the lead to make their technologies accessible for industry peers—the company recently detailed their animal-free cell culture media formulation, a groundbreaking advancement for an industry that still largely relies on the use of costly and controversial fetal bovine serum in media formulations.?

Above all, we continue to see more and more researchers—the true experts in evaluating the plausibility of the field—casting their vote of confidence by joining the industry. Aryé Elfenbein, Mark Post, and Uma Valeti, the co-founders of companies like Wildtype, Mosa Meat, and Upside Foods respectively, were all former doctors who saw how the science behind stem cell research could be applied to creating future foods.?

Cultivating Growth

In being a fresh way of feeding the world, cellular agriculture displays great potential to solve current systemic issues of food production and distribution. It’s hence paramount that the industry is adequately supported to create a new world of food that does more. As it stands, there are numerous avenues for investors to help cellular agriculture companies grow their production levels and business models. These include but are not limited to:

Cell lines are the basic building blocks of cultivated products. Photo: GFI

• Funding open-source cell line technologies. The current lack of open-access research is a factor hindering the industry’s continuous scalability. That private funding currently outweighs public funding means that there are less incentives for cellular agriculture companies to share their intellectual property. Yet, the paradox is that for a new industry to develop robust and productive innovation ecosystems, tools and ideas need to be shared. Cell lines, in particular, in being the basic building block of cultivated meat, are crucial for scientists to accelerate the development of cultivated products. Investors could look at making quality and affordable cell lines available to researchers by offering funding to institutes like GFI, which is working to build a repository of open-source validated cell lines.?
• Providing funding and support for computer modeling technologies. Carrying out actual laboratory prototyping of cultivated meat products costs substantial time and money. With computer modeling however, lab experiments can be conducted virtually, with results arrived at much more quickly and at a fraction of the cost. The Cultivated Meat Modeling Consortium (CMMC ) is one such organization accelerating the cost-efficient design of high-quality cultivated meat.
• Creating new business models. One of the greatest advantages of cellular agriculture is the possibility of redesigning proteins to have customized nutritional profiles. Here is an opportunity to cultivate a “craft protein” market. That might look like producing isolated bioactives sustainably and applying them in new and exciting ways that meet the needs of untapped markets. Or it might even mean creating chicken with added Omega-3 and vitamins in it, or pork with far less saturated fat. Naturally fitting into this craft protein market is blockchain technology, which can meet the growing demand for food supply chain transparency. All this offers an alternative to plant-based meats, which are now attracting concerns for their high-sodium and ultra-processed ingredient labels.
• Investing in sustainability. For cellular agriculture to truly revolutionize our food production methods, sustainability has to be baked into every aspect of its methods. One crucial aspect is ensuring that clean energy sources are being used, what with the energy-intensive nature of the industry. To that end, investors can look at supporting companies in building renewable energy infrastructures close to their production facilities. Investors are crucial in driving the low-carbon transition across the global economy, a move which besides creating positive societal change, can also help protect the value of their investments.?
• Supporting platforms working on educating consumers about cellular agriculture. When everyday consumers become familiar and comfortable with the way cellular agriculture works, that's when mass adoption of cultivated products can begin.?Non-profit Cellular Agriculture Society (CAS ), for example, has been working hard at this. Key to their approach is tapping on talents from fields as diverse as brand strategy, social sciences, and nonprofit strategy to?create immersive?educational content. These span visually compelling digital experiences,?to working with universities like Stanford to introduce the world’s first curriculum about cellular agriculture. Most notably, CAS is also?welcoming voices from the next generation—undoubtedly the ones who will be living out the reality we’re currently building. Quality educational platforms such as these will certainly help in accelerating consumer acceptance of cultivated foods.?
• Mass adoption of cultivated products begins with everyday consumers being aware of and familiar with the novel concepts of cellular agriculture. The non-profit Cellular Agriculture Society (CAS ), for example, has been working hard at creating educational content that spans immersive, visually compelling digital experiences, to working with universities like Stanford to introduce the world’s first curriculum about cellular agriculture. Key to their approach is tapping on talents from fields as diverse as brand strategy, social sciences, and nonprofit strategy, and especially welcoming the voices from the next generation who will undoubtedly be the ones living out the reality we’re currently building. Quality educational platforms such as these will certainly help in accelerating consumer acceptance of cultivated foods.?

From scaling production to actual product launches, and seeing follow-on investments, 2022 looks to be a promising year for cellular agriculture.

To create a better future with better food, we have to continue building on this momentum and make each new chapter of this new agricultural revolution count.?