Council Post: How Cultured Meat Could Revolutionize The Food Industry

Co-Founder of Supertrends.

Most humans love the taste of meat. Meat also contains vitamin B12 and heme iron, which are essential to our nourishment but can be rare in other foods than meat.

No wonder humans have been eating meat for 3.4 million years.

Since we’ve been eating meat for so long, there is little reason to believe the majority of people will lose their desire for it anytime soon, or ever.

However, we might completely change the way the vast majority of our meat is sourced or made, just as our ancestors did when they changed from hunting to farming approximately 12,000 years ago. That was a revolution with massive implications, and what might follow now is a new evolution where we transition from slaughtered meat toward synthesized meat.

How Is It Made?

Synthesized meat is also called “cultured meat.” Here is what producers need to make it:

• A steel tank called a bioreactor.

• A small amount of somewhat modified meat cells originating from a real animal.

• An edible growth matrix, or “scaffold,” that makes the cells align in muscle fibers.

• A serum to nourish the growth of the cell culture.

• Various additives to stimulate this growth and to help avoid infections.

• Other additives to make it taste and look better and be more nutritious.

In the steel tank, the cells multiply and combine into muscle fibers, which again combine into muscle tissue.

Good Reasons For The Switch

Here are some ways cultured meat can benefit society:

• Free up land: 40% of the U.S.’s entire landmass is allocated to grazing or growing feed for animals.

• Protect marine environments: Reduced fishing activity can improve natural sea fauna and reduce conflicts regarding fishing rights.

• Prevent mistreatment of animals: Although much farming is done with high respect for the animals involved, others involve various forms of abuse.

• Reduce emissions of greenhouse gases: It is estimated that direct livestock emissions are responsible for close to one-quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions.

• Create carbon sinks: Flourishing wildlife in natural parks made possible because of a switch to cultured meat can act as powerful carbon sinks.

• Reduce the overuse of antibiotics: This can be a problem with traditional farming methods.

• Reduce the spread of zoonotic diseases.

• Enhance food security: It is possible to produce cultured meat even in a desert or on a battleship, and some communities could see an advantage in using the technology to enhance food supply security.

• Save energy: Estimates so far indicate that at least cultured beef will require far less energy than farmed beef.

• Reduce food contamination: Produced in a far more controlled environment, cultured meat can be safer to eat.

• Create greater diversity of edible meat: Since you only need a few cells from the relevant animal to start the process, we could make cultured meat based on virtually any edible species we desire.

• Create healthier meat: Cultured meat could become genetically optimized for health by making the added fat healthy rather than damaging, for instance. Also, vitamins and other nutrients could be added during the production process.

• Feed the hungry: If and when cultured meat becomes cheaper than farmed meat, it could nourish people who cannot afford meat today.

An Emerging Revolution?

I expect the first commercial product launches as early as next year, possibly in Asia. However, we must probably wait until around 2025 before we get to any meaningful quantities.

After that, the industry will be on a relentless drive to improve quality and drive down prices. Costs may fall due to increased output, and each time you double annual output, you cut unit costs marginally. Perhaps this will be the path followed, or perhaps costs will fall much faster, as we have seen in the precision fermentation industry, where unit costs have fallen by over 99.9% in recent decades.

In any case, for cultured meat to reach the high-end meat market, producers must also solve gourmet challenges by mixing the muscle fibers into a collagen matrix as well as 3D printing mixtures of muscle fibers and fat pockets. You can’t beat a steak with minced meat, but you can beat it with another steak that was made without killing animals and with a lower price tag.

The Marketing Challenges

Launching cultured meat must count as one of the most intriguing marketing challenges of all time, and certainly of our time. On one hand, you will have early adopters willing to pay a premium price because of the positive effects of cutting meat production and consumption. On the other hand, many consumers will find cultured meat “yucky.” They will only buy it if it is cheap. The former speaks for serving it in trendy restaurants, and the latter for using it as pet food. 

Early distribution will most likely be largely B2B, meaning subcontracting to producers of pet food, chicken nuggets, burgers, meatballs, hot dogs and sausages. In addition to this, there will be niche activity targeting idealistic and curious early adopters. But however it plays out, make no mistake: This is likely the beginning of a total revolution in the global meat business.

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