Cultivated meat manufacturing: Technology, trends, and challenges

Abstract

The growing world population, public awareness of animal welfare, environmental impacts and changes in meat consumption leads to the search for novel approaches to food production. Novel foods include products with a new or specifically modified molecular structure, foods made from microorganisms, fungi, algae or insects, as well as from animal cell or tissue cultures. The latter approach is known by various names: "clean meat", "in vitro meat" and "cell-cultured" or "(cell-)cultivated meat". Here, cells isolated from agronomically important species are expanded ex vivo to produce cell biomass used in unstructured meat or to grow and differentiate cells on scaffolds to produce structured meat analogues. Despite the fast-growing field and high financial interest from investors and governments, cultivated meat production still faces challenges ranging from cell source choice, affordable expansion, use of cruelty-free and food-grade media, regulatory issues and consumer acceptance. This overview discusses the above challenges and possible solutions and strategies in the production of cultivated meat. The review integrates multifaceted historical, social, and technological insights of the field, and provides both an engaging comprehensive introduction for general interested and a robust perspective for experts.

Keywords: cell selection; cultivated meat; mammalian cell expansion; media composition; regulatory challenges.

FIGURE 1

Disembodied kitchen art project installation with cell cultivation room connected to the dining room with a terrarium with frogs from which muscle cells were isolated. The Tissue Culture and Art project, https://tcaproject.net/portfolio/disembodied‐cuisine/

FIGURE 2

(A) Meat production worldwide in recent years. (B) Population growth from 1700 to 2021 demonstrates rapid increase over the last centuries. (C) Meat consumption per capita shows a correlation with gross domestic product. (D) Environmental impacts of food and agriculture. https://ourworldindata.org

FIGURE 3

Cultivated meat production pipeline. Created with Biorender.

FIGURE 4

Optimization areas and relevant parameters in cultivated meat production. Created with Biorender.