Alternative Protein Fundamentals Programme

Policy & Entrepreneurship Track

Week 4: Cultivated Meat

What if, rather than trying to mimic meat using plants and microbes, we could produce actual animal muscle and fat without having to raise and slaughter the whole animal? Advances in stem cell technology have given rise to just this: cultivated meat (sometimes referred to as cultured, clean or lab-grown meat).

This session introduces the basics of cultivated meat - genuine animal meat that can replicate the sensory and nutritional profile of conventionally produced meat because it’s comprised of the same cell types arranged in the same three-dimensional structure as animal muscle tissue. What are the main components of cultivated meat production and when might we see it on our plates?

Core Material [~2hrs]

Exercise: There are hundreds of companies and academic groups working on technology related to cultivated meat now. Which are you most excited about at present? Do some of your own research and come to the next session with 3 companies or groups that you’ve found to share with your cohort.

Discussion Prompts

General

  • The term “cultivated meat” seems to have been settled on to describe this technology. You may also have heard terms such as “cultured meat”, “clean meat”, “cell-based meat”, “lab-grown meat” and more. Which terms do you prefer and how important do you think the naming of this technology will be for its perception?

  • Cultivated meat is made of animal cells so wouldn’t strictly be classed as vegan or vegetarian. How important is this and which demographics do you think will be the main consumers of CM products?

  • Would you eat cultivated meat? What would be the main factors for and against you eating it? If you have concerns, what evidence would you like to see to mitigate these? 

  • The MOOC lecture raised the point that animal cells may need to be sourced in a specific way to meet certain religious law criteria (5:20/slide 10). How do you think CM might be perceived in different religious and cultural settings, especially those with stringent laws around meat?

  • An agricultural revolution with CM has the potential to reduce global food inequality that we see today. What features of CM might make it desirable to countries that have historically struggled with food security? What steps need to be put in place to ensure a transition to CM doesn’t reinforce the global food inequality we already see?

  • What groups might be negatively affected by disruption of the agricultural industry in a shift towards CM? How might we mitigate this?

  • The MOOC lecture highlights some of the large food, meat and chemical companies that have invested in or partnered with cultivated meat companies (37:40/slide 43). What are the potential pros and cons of these relationships? To what extent are they necessary if cultivated meat is to disrupt the global meat market?

  • Many companies are currently competing to reach pilot-scale and then commercial-scale production of CM and ultimately be the first to market. What are the benefits and potential risks of this competition in the context of CM?

  • How could your skills potentially be useful in working on technological considerations within cultivated meat? Could you tailor a future research project to contribute to this field?

Regulation

  • How are the EU and US regulatory processes similar and different?

  • What reasons might cultivated meat not be considered GRAS?

  • Do you think cultivated meat will be approved first in the US or the EU? Why?

    • Think about your own country or region. How long do you think it will be before CM is approved?

  • For what reasons do you think Singapore became the first country to approve of cultivated meat?

Business Whitespaces

  • How do you perceive the risk of setting up or investing in a company in the cultivated meat space relative to plant-based or fermentation? What about the potential returns?

  • When people think of cultivated meat development it is easy to divide it into 4 main parts: cells, scaffold, media and bioreactor. Many startups have arisen to specialise in each of these areas to support cultivated meat companies. Can you think of any other important areas that are being neglected (i.e. there are very few startups specialising in those areas) and why do you think that is? (eg. bioprocess, scale up, downstream processing, meat science)

Further Resources:

General

Podcasts

Regulation

Consumer Acceptance

Business Landscape and Projections