Year: 2024

Singapore — a small island nation — and Dubai — a rapidly growing emirate in the desert where sandstorms and daytime temperatures as high as 120°F restrict agriculture production — import more than 90% of their food. This is not sustainable. These are the regions that will benefit from scientific advancements in food production, including cultured meat, a product officially banned in Alabama and Florida.

Understanding cellular agriculture

Precision fermentation technology has been around for a little more than 30 years. Today it is on an accelerated pathway to commercialization in many developing countries, as it is recognized for its potential in feeding the growing population and saving the planet by producing food and food ingredients in more earth-friendly manners. It’s already used to make a number of food ingredients, including natural flavors, rennet, vitamins and stevia. But it is recent advancements in cellular agriculture — the process of using precision fermentation to produce genuine animal proteins without slaughter — that is fueling interest and innovation.

“There is a direct line between food production, climate, socioeconomic opportunities and equity. How we make our food is one of the foundational ways to change the world around us,” said Nicki Briggs, vice president of corporate communications, Perfect Day, Berkely, Calif., and chair of the Precision Fermentation Alliance (PFA). Founded one year ago, the PFA serves as an industry voice and global convener for this emerging industry.

“Precision fermentation is the newest chapter in the history of making food without animals,” said Maija Itkonen, co-founder and chief executive officer, Onego Bio, a US-Finnish food ingredient company. “It allows us to provide people with food that is sustainable, tasty and healthy, without cutting any corners or making any compromises.”

Ancient technology gets modernized

Fermentation without the “precision” has been around forever. That’s how grapes turn into wine, bread rises and kombucha becomes effervescent and probiotic. Precision fermentation is, as the name suggests, more precise. It’s calculated technology.

In precision fermentation, bioengineering techniques are used to program microorganisms by giving them a specific genetic code to produce a compound of interest when fermented under precise conditions. The genetic code is the exact copy of the DNA sequence found in a digitized database of animal or plant DNA sequences; however, it requires no animal or plant involvement. The result is the molecularly identical ingredient made by microorganisms.

This may sound a little scary to some, especially ranchers who make their livelihood from raising livestock. But in countries where locally raised meat and poultry is scarce, it’s the difference between being able to put burgers on the grill for a family barbecue or serving stone soup.

The PFA hopes to change consumers’ perception of cultured meat. In the States, it apparently is not working.

SCiFi Foods, San Leandro, Calif., a cultured hamburger startup, shut down in early June. The company started out as Artemys Foods in 2019 and raised about $40 million from a number of venture capital funds and even British rock band Coldplay. This was not enough to keep the business going. Besides having regulatory hurdles to bring the product to market, there were likely issues with scale up to improve the economics of production.

“Given challenges in the fundraising market, we’ve appointed an advisory firm to run a sale process,” Joshua March, co-founder and CEO, said to AgFunderNews.com, which first reported the closing.

Another challenge, as mentioned, is consumer perception. This is being fueled by a number of states already banning or discussing the ban of the sale of cultured meat. If consumers are reluctant or prohibited from purchasing, it’s impossible to be profitable.

Two companies have approval in the United States to sell cultivated meat. Both Eat Just Inc., San Francisco, and Upside Foods, Berkeley, Calif., developed slaughter-free chicken made using precision fermentation.

In December 2020, Singapore became the first country to sell cultured meat when Eat Just’s Good Meat Cultured Chicken was served at 1880, a contemporary restaurant founded to inspire conversations that change the world. Since, it’s been served at other restaurants and now a hybrid version is available packaged for sale at Singapore-based Huber’s Butchery and Bistro.

The hybrid recipe features a mere 3% of cultivated animal cells. The rest is plant proteins. The product is sold frozen, which helps with shelf life.

This new product, Good Meat 3, was developed to meet strong consumer demand for cultivated meat in Singapore, and to create opportunities for people to try it in the comfort of their own homes. Using a smaller percentage of cultivated chicken in combination with plant proteins, which have always been used in Good Meat’s cultivated chicken products, also helps reduce costs associated with the production of cultivated meat, one of the main challenges that exist to scaling this developing industry.

“Before today (May 15, 2024), cultivated meat had never been available in retail stores for regular people to buy, and now it is,” said Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just. “This year, we will sell more servings of cultivated chicken than have been sold in any year prior. At the same time, we know there is much more work to be done to prove that cultivated meat can be made at large scale, and we remain focused on that objective.”

This milestone came on the heels of efforts in the United States to restrict or outright ban cultivated meat production and sales. In early May, Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, signed a bill into law criminalizing the sale of cultivated meat in that state. This came a few days after South Korea created a “Regulation-Free Special Zone” designated for cultivated food and other bio-tech companies. These areas have specific regulatory exemptions intended to foster innovation and embrace novel food technologies that have the potential to help address problems like climate change, food security and animal suffering.

Communicating benefits

As of now, while consumers say they are interested in supporting sustainable food systems, many have questions and concerns. Further, sustainability cannot be the number-one selling point, according to Jack Bobo, director of the University of Nottingham’s Food Systems Institute in the United Kingdom. First comes taste, nutrition and price.

“Consumers don’t change their eating habits to save their lives, why would they do so to save the planet?” Bobo said.

Despite the excitement around alternative proteins, there is often confusion and skepticism, according to PFA. The PFA’s mission is to change that narrative, highlighting the safety and effectiveness of the technology.

One of the biggest hurdles is communicating that while precision fermentation uses genetic engineering techniques, it is different from genetically modified crops. The technology uses genetically engineered microorganisms in the fermentation process, but the modified organisms are filtered out after fermentation, leaving only the specific compounds or ingredients that they have been designed to create. If the end product does not contain any genetically modified material, it is not considered a GMO or required to be labeled as “bioengineered” by current US regulatory standards.

Even with consumer buy-in, there’s still the extreme costs involved with commercialization. That’s where the new Bezos Center for Sustainable Protein at North Carolina State University enters the picture. On May 31, 2024, The Bezos Earth Fund awarded North Carolina State $30 million over five years to lead a center of excellence to create a biomanufacturing hub for dietary proteins that are environmentally friendly, healthy, tasty and affordable. The Earth Fund has committed $100 million to establish a network of open-access research and development centers focused on sustainable protein alternatives.

“Food production is the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, so it’s critical we find ways to feed a growing population without degrading the planet,” said Andrew Steer, president and CEO of the Earth Fund. “Sustainable protein has tremendous potential, but more research is needed to reduce the price and boost the flavor and texture to ensure nutritious, affordable products are available. It’s about choice.”

Choosing cultured meat

Good Meat cultivated chicken dishes were tested in a consumer study at Huber’s Butchery and Bistro in Singapore. The results were published this past March in Future Foods, a peer-reviewed scientific journal dedicated to sustainability in food science. Researchers from Singapore Management University found that buying and eating cultivated meat “significantly boosted” diners’ acceptance of this novel food. The study also found that after trying cultivated chicken, diners expressed a strong willingness to eat it again, and to recommend it to friends or family.

“This report is significant, as it’s the first-ever study of actual paying consumers of cultivated meat. The findings are clear: when consumers are free to buy cultivated meat, they are much more likely to accept it and suggest it to their friends and family,” Tetrick said.

In surveying more than 100 people who sat down to a meal at Huber’s in 2023, the researchers used a real-life setting to determine whether “presenting cultivated meat in the context of a familiar meal in a familiar social setting” would predict diners’ willingness to try it again and recommend it to others. The study’s findings reinforced Good Meat’s “strategy of socializing cultivated chicken to consumers through curated food trials at restaurants: eating is believing.”

Taste was another important factor in the study, showing that “tastiness” of the cultivated chicken itself was more important to diners than whether the chicken was presented in a “familiar meal or dish.” Survey participants gave cultivated meat a score of 4.2 out of 5 on taste, and 4.45 out of 5 on willingness to recommend to others.

“Singaporean diners are renowned for their discerning taste in food, so while environmental and public health benefits can be additional motivators, the product has to hit the mark on flavor,” said Mirte Gosker, managing director-Asia Pacific, The Good Food Institute. “This data shows that cultivated meat can pass that high bar and turn skeptics into enthusiasts, so now we need costs to come down enough to enable such products to reach the masses.

“That’s going to require greater global collaboration, market access and investment, but Singapore has made clear that it’s open for business and ready to meet this moment,” Gosker added.

Eat Just is ready to deliver. The company’s Singapore production facility has the capacity to produce tens of thousands of pounds of meat from cells, without the need to slaughter a single animal. It houses the single-largest bioreactor in the cultivated meat industry to date.

For now, animal slaughter-free meat and poultry will likely remain a Southeast Asian thing. A recent YouGov poll showed that 31% of Americans support a ban on making and selling lab-grown meat in their state, while 36% oppose such a ban and 32% are unsure. Only 10% of Americans would definitely consider trying lab-grown meat, with an additional 18% saying they probably would. Conversely, 40% said they would definitely not try it, and 20% probably would not, leaving 12% of respondents unsure.

In a hypothetical future where lab-grown meat is indistinguishable from animal meat in taste, nutrition and cost, 50% of Americans would still prefer conventional animal meat. Only 13% of respondents said they would choose lab-grown meat, while 14% would opt for neither and 22% remain unsure.These findings highlight a mix of curiosity, skepticism and preferences that will likely shape the future of lab-grown meat in the United States.