Currently browsing posts about: Cell-based

I’m constantly being asked what food will look like in the future, so I’ve been collecting items about new-and-unusual foods headed our way.

Do these bode well for the future of food?  You decide.

New Foods

• New nutritional substitute? Donkey milk touted as potential ingredient for infant and ageing products: Researchers have argued that the rich and diverse content of proteins in donkey milk could promote cell growth and proliferation, stimulate the immune system, exert anti-ageing effects, and possess antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties…. Read more
• How can industry turn the tide on seaweed consumption?  In Europe, many consumers associated seaweed with the rotting, smelly kelp that washes up on beaches. How can industry cultivate consumer appetite for marine plants?… Read more
• Cactus cookies and banana peel snacks among foods of the future:  Several food products that were designed to regenerate the planet have been invited to the next stage of the Big Food Redesign Challenge…. Read more
• ‘Insects will be seen as normal food’: How industry is combatting consumer reluctance to eat insect protein:  Insects are not only thought to contain at least as much protein as conventional meat, but are also more environmentally sustainable. However, their novelty on the market poses challenges in consumer acceptance. How do start-ups persuade consumers to eat them?… Read more 
• Business Insider Starbucks launched a pork-flavored coffee in China:  The beverage, whose name translates into “Abundant Year Savory Latte,” is pictured with a slice of skewered pork perched on top of a mug.  .Read More

Cultivated meat

• Introducing meat–rice: grain with added muscles beefs up protein:  The laboratory-grown food uses rice as a scaffold for cultured meat…Using rice as the scaffold has the benefit of adding nutrition to the rice, with the beef–rice having a slightly higher fat and protein content than standard rice.
• Not halal just yet: Singapore Islamic Council says ‘more rigorous’ parameters must be fulfilled for cultivated meat to be halal-certified: The Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) has highlighted that cultivated meat still needs to meet a ‘more rigorous’ set of requirements to be halal-certified, even though it has been deemed potentially permissible for halal consumption…. Read more

Comment: It’s a brave new world out there.  Two issues:  (1) Is this stuff delicious?  (2) Will it make money?  Stay tuned.

I subscribe to AgFunder News, not least because I so admire Elaine Watson’s reporting on the food industry.

I was particularly interested in her detailed account of investment in cultured meat and seafood startups: ​Preliminary AgFunder data point to 78% decline in cultivated meat funding in 2023; investors blame ‘general risk aversion.’

Here’s what’s happening:

Funding may have dropped, but investors put nearly $200 million into this technology in 2023.  That isn’t nothing.

Watson reviews the reasons for the funding decline:

• High interest rates
• Risk aversion
• Too many companies seeking investment
• Scalability of the product
• Cost parity
• Lack of government funding

Cultivated meat is not yet on the market.  It’s hard to assess it or predict its future without tasting it.  I’m trying to keep an open mind.

For a deep dive into what’s happening in this industry, see Joe Fassler’s excellent piece in the New York Times: Opinion | The Revolution That Died on Its Way to Dinner.

His point:  Cell-cultured meat is “an escape hatch for humankind’s excesses.”

For all its terrifying urgency, climate change is an invitation — to reinvent our economies, to rethink consumption, to redraw our relationships to nature and to one another. Cultivated meat was an excuse to shirk that hard, necessary work. The idea sounded futuristic, but its appeal was all about nostalgia, a way to pretend that things will go on as they always have, that nothing really needs to change. It was magical climate thinking, a delicious delusion.

In the course of his investigations, Fassler got to taste cell-cultured chicken.  This did not make him optimistic about its future.

As I said, I’m trying to stay open minded.  I suspect this story is not over yet.  Stay tuned.

Cell-Based or Cultured Meat continues to generate predictions, positive (new products, new approvals, growth) and negative (doom, bans).

Current status: The FDA and USDA have approved sales of cell-cultured chicken but the only place selling it is Bar Crenn in San Francisco (where I have not been).

While waiting for it to get scaled up (if this ever will be possible), here are a few items I’ve collected recently.

THE POSITIVES

• A new window opens for the emerging lab-meat industry:  Joint regulation of cell-cultured meat by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has not brought transparency to  the novel food. To help fill that transparency gap, the Center for the Environment and Welfare (CEW) has announced the launch of LabMeat.com, a new website to educate the public… Continue Reading.
• ‘People want to eat meat,’ SCiFi Foods CEO on first production run, potential of cell-cultivated meat:  Food-tech company SCiFi Foods inches closer to releasing its hybrid meat product that consists of a blend of cell-cultivated beef and plant proteins, upon completing its first commercial-scale production run, company co-founder and CEO Joshua March told FoodNavigator-USA…. Read more
• Israeli Company Gets Green Light to Make World’s First Cultivated Beef Steaks. An Israeli company has received a preliminary green light from health officials to sell the world’s first steaks made from cultivated beef cells, not the entire animal, officials said. The move follows approval of lab-grown chicken in the U.S. last year.
• ‘Essentially real meat, just grown differently’: Ivy Farm’s CSO on cultivated meat production and commercialisation. UK-based Ivy Farm, which produces cultivated meat, began as a spin-off from Oxford University. Now, says its new CSO, Dr. Harsh Amin, commercialisation is in sight…. Read more
• USDA: ‘We will need cellular agriculture’ to reach climate, food innovation goals:  Sustained government support and transparent scientific research, such as USDA’s landmark grant to Tufts University’s National Institute for Cellular Agriculture program, can energize cellular agriculture R&D and renew attention from the private sector, experts argue…. Read more

THE NEGATIVES

• Lab-grown foods ‘creep people out’, says Natural Grocers:  Cell-cultured or precision fermentation-derived products including meat and dairy alternatives will be rejected by consumers in 2024, US grocery chain Natural Grocers predicts…. Read more
• Cultivated meat labeling puzzle could bring legal headaches:  Though regulators came to a consensus on what to call the namesake product in 2022, continuing debates over package labeling rules could still create headwinds for players in the space.
• Crunch time for cultivated meat: ‘Probably 70-90% of players will fail in the next year’:  on paper, cultivated meat might seem like a no-brainer. Unlike plant-based options, which still don’t quite hit the spot for many consumers, it promises the allure of ‘real’ meat without the ethical and environmental baggage that comes with plundering our oceans and raising billions of sentient land animals for food.
• Italy bans cultured meat: The Italian parliament voted to ban the production, importation, or sale of cell-cultured meat in a step the far-right government called a defense of Italian culture.

THE QUESTIONS

• What’s the Italian Government’s beef with cultivated meat?  The Italian Government recently announced that it would ban cultivated meat production, at the same time restricting meat-related labels on plant-based meat alternatives. The decision has drawn significant criticism from some quarters, but from Italy’s perspective, the ruling is motivated by a desire to protect culinary traditions as well as key stakeholders such as farmers…. Read more.
• What is the environmental impact of cultivated meat?  While the verdict is still out on the sustainability of cultivated meat production, a panel of experts during the Tufts University Cellular Agriculture Day on Jan. 11 in Boston, Mass., are optimistic, citing the need for expansive data sets on more diverse cell culture mediums, bioreactors and energy sources…. Read more
• Is cultivated meat a threat to farming? EU countries clash over cellular agriculture’s future: According to delegates from Italy, France and Austria, cellular agriculture practices represent a threat to primary farm-based approaches and ‘genuine’ food production methods. … Read more

I’m trying to keep up with what’s happening with cultivated meat.  So far, the FDA has approved a couple of cultivated chicken cell companies, and these are selling “chicken” in a couple of restaurants, one in San Francisco and the other in Washington DC.

The big issue: scaling cell production up enough to have product to sell.  It takes lots of cells–billions? trillions?—to make a portion big enough to eat.

Here’s what’s going on in this area in the U.S. and U.K.

• • • ‘A defining feature of stem cells is that they can become other cells’: Strategies for the use of stem cells in cultivated meat productionThe production of cultivated meat will need stable cell lines from multiple different species to be successful. It is produced from stem cells, which are highly flexible and can create yields with the potential to be far greater in volume than the meat the cells originated from…. Read more.  
    • ‘Meating’ demand: Animal-based proteins versus cell-based agricultureAs demand for meat and poultry continues to grow, Food Manufacture explores what is driving sales of animal-based protein and whether or not the advent of cell-based meat is truly the herald of things to come, or a half-baked pipedream limited by a lack of resources…. Read more. How cultivated meat could be the key to avoiding the development of antimicrobial resistance: While the ‘routine use’ of antibiotics in animal agriculture is banned in the EU, increasing globalisation can make it difficult to avoid imported meat reared in this way. While the routine use of antibiotics can increase the risk of antimicrobial resistance, cultivated meat could provide a means of mitigating this…. Read more
      • • UK Government looking to fast-track legalisation of cultivated meat: The UK is set to fast-track the approval of cultivated meat as part of a partnership with Israel, the Telegraph has reported. Read more
        • Extracellular opens ‘Europe’s largest’ pilot plant for cultivated meat: Food tech firm Extracellular has opened ‘Europe’s largest’ contract pilot facility dedicated to cultivated meat and seafood production at its site in Bristol. Read more
        • Solving the mainstream adoption of alternative meats on a molecular level: Agilent Technologies global food segment director Lorna De Leoz explores the future of alternative proteins and how new advances in analytical tools can boost mainstream adoption of plant-based and cultured protein. Read more
        • Brazilian giant JBS begins construction on cultivated protein research centre: The JBS Biotech Innovation Centre is expected to open before the end of 2024 after construction work commenced this month (September 2023). Read more
        • ‘For the industry to succeed, there will need to be a ramping up of investment’: The past and future of the cultivated meat market: The number of deals in the cultivated meat market in the first eight months of 2023 has significantly declined since 2022, a report by financial advisory firm Oghma Partners shows. However, strong government investment and potential regulatory approval could provide a boost for the sector…. Read more
        • Episode 8: Alternative proteins: Tune in to this month’s Food Manufacture podcast, where we talk plant-based proteins and the future of the meat alternatives market. Read more. 

In the Brave New World we now live in, food technology has scored a big win.  Food Navigator has the story: How does a cultivated chicken cell line meet kosher standards?

In a world first, OU Kosher [The kosher certification division of the Orthodox Union] has determined that the chicken cell line of Israeli start-up SuperMeat meets kosher standards.

In another world first, the OU has recognised cultivated meat as kosher and meat.

How is this even possible?

The OU’s recognition comes after a series of halachic discussions (concerning Jewish religious laws) and scientific reviews. The latter focused on avian embryogenesis and stem cells, including the observation of the excision of embryonic stem cells from a fertilised chicken egg prior to the appearance of blood spots.

SuperMeat worked closely with the OU and eminent rabbis to identify the vital elements of the sourcing and process to make sure that it holds to the highest standards of Kashrut [dietary laws]….

SuperMeat obtains the stem cells from very early after fertilisation of the egg at a precise time before the emergence of blood spots eliminating the necessity for slaughter and ensuring there is no blood involved in the process….SuperMeat does not use FBS [fetal bovine serum] or any other animal components in its media or process.

In my book about pet food with Malden Nesheim, Feed Your Pet Right, we wrote a chapter on Kosher pet food (one of my favorites).

The kosher laws are based on biblical injunctions against eating two kinds of animals, those that do not ruminate and do not have completely cloven hooves (Leviticus 11:26), and young animals cooked in their mother’s milk (Deuteronomy 14:21).   Thus, they forbid such things as eating pork or mixing meat and dairy foods at the same meal.

The Passover celebration requires one additional restriction.   Jews are not allowed to have in the house or to consume any foods containing chametz—wheat, wheat starch, wheat gluten, barley, oats, oat fiber, and other grains—precisely the ingredients in many pet foods.

Given the multiple and not always identifiable sources of ingredients in pet foods, it is difficult to imagine how pet foods can conform to Jewish dietary laws at any time, let alone at Passover.

Can pet foods be kosher?  Is it acceptable to hold Passover seders for dogs and cats, as some do?  And must pet owners who observe Jewish dietary laws feed their animals according to such laws?  The answers are typically Talmudic: yes, and no.

Super Meat is not on the market yet.  But aren’t you relieved to know that when it is, the Orthodox Union has given its blessing to cell-cultured meat.

Brave New World indeed.

I don’t know about you but I’m riveted by what’s in the pipeline for cell cultured meat alternatives.   Here are some recent items I’ve been collecting.

Products under development

• Why the first mass-produced cultured meat product won’t be food: While in the long-term, Czech start-up Bene Meat Technologies plans to develop a cell-based steak product for human consumption, its short-term focus has pivoted to cultured pet food, CEO Roman Kříž tells FoodNavigator…. Read more
• Pork and microalgae cells combined in cultivated meat an ‘industry first’: Czech start-up Mewery claims to have developed the first prototype of cultivated meat based on microalgae. The company is already in talks with the Singapore Food Agency, founder Roman Lauš tells FoodNavigator…. Read more
• UK Scientist produce ‘world’s first’ 100% cultivated steak: UK-based scientists have produced the ‘world’s first’ steak fillet made from 100% cultivated meat. Read more

State of the industry

• Cultivated meat in focus at Tufts cellular ag innovation day: From bioreactor bottlenecks to a ‘global battle cry’ for government funding: It’s becoming increasingly clear that early projections about the speed with which cultivated meat might gain market share now seem pretty optimistic. But Rome wasn’t built in a day, and significant progress is being made to build the ecosystem needed to sustain a completely new industry, said key stakeholders at an event run by Tufts University on Thursday…. Read more
• Dissecting cultivated meat regulation part 2: What’s working in the US and Singapore, and what’s not?  Both the US and Singapore have seen cultivated meat products pass through their regulatory processes, yet the two governments approach novel foods in different ways. Which challenges and opportunities exist within these regulatory frameworks, and what impact could they have on Europe?… Read more

State of the techno-food scene

• Soylent acquired by Starco Brands as nutrition company shifts into its ‘natural next stage’: Soylent Nutrition is joining public company Starco Brands as part of an acquisition that will keep the plant-based food technology company operating as a separate unit under its current CEO Demir Vangelov.  As part of the transaction, Vangelov told TechCrunch that he will join Starco’s board and is getting shares in the new company, while himself and Soylent’s shareholders will become the largest single voting block in Starco. Other financial details were not disclosed.

Comment

Cell-based meat, meat-plus-algae, and pet food are not yet on the US market so it’s too early to see what they taste like and how well they will do.  I see these products as mostly about mergers, acquisitions, and generating lots of money for investors, which is why I included the Soylent event (Soylent is a nutrient supplement drink, but I put it in the same category of “techno-food”).

The International Political Economy Society (IPES) food section has just issued this report.

Its major thesis: alternative plant- or cell-based alternative meats are not the solution to world food problems.

As the report’s author, Phil Howard, explains in his Civil Eats editorial:

The hype around alternative proteins also diverts our attention away from solutions that are already working on the ground: shifting to diversified agroecological production systems, strengthening territorial food chains and markets, and building “food environments” which increase access to healthy and sustainable diets. These pathways respond holistically to challenges whose breadth and depth have been well-evidenced. They entail transformative behavioral and structural shifts. They require sustainable food system transitions, not merely a protein transition. Yet without a consolidated set of claims and claim-makers behind them, these pathways are systematically sidelined.

Don’t feel like reading the report?  Watch the video.

Other resources:

• Executive summary:  EN | FR | ES | P
• Full report EN | FR | ES | PT 
• Infosheet: Fake meat in the spotlight [EN] — This document is especially useful.

********

For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.

In big news for the cell-cultured meat industry, the FDA has done its version of approving production of cellular chicken.

Here, in inimitable FDA-speak, is the agency’s essentially tacit approval of UPSIDE Foods, Inc’s cultured chicken cell material:

Based on the data and information presented…we have no questions at this time about UPSIDE’s conclusion that foods comprised of or containing cultured chicken cell material resulting from the production process defined in CCC [Cell Culture Consultation] 000002 are as safe as comparable foods2 produced by other methods. Furthermore, at this time we have not identified any information indicating that the production process as described in CCC 000002 would be expected to result in food that bears or contains any substance or microorganism that would adulterate the food.

And here’s what The Guardian has to say about this breakthrough.

With Singapore currently the only country in which lab-grown meat products are legally sold to consumers, the US approval could open the floodgates to a new food market that backers say is more efficient and environmentally friendly than traditional livestock farming.

That’s the big news.

But there’s more:

• Wilk makes yogurt using milk from cultivated cells: The Israeli company is the first to create a finished dairy product that has been produced by cells grown outside of an animal.
• Tracking the cell-based meat space: SuperMeat shows off a cultivated turkey prototype in time for Thanksgiving, and Steakholder Foods holds its first U.S. tasting.

Here are my questions:

• How does this stuff taste?
• Is it better than chicken?
• Will anyone want to eat it?
• If they do, can UPSIDE do this at scale?
• What will this chicken substitute cost?
• Is this really better for health and the environment?

I can’t wait to find out.

Tomorrow: What’s happening with plant-based meat alternatives.

***********

For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.