While conventional meat practices focus on high productivity, they are not environmentally sustainable. Meat production raises concerns over land and water overuse, excessive carbon emissions, and heavy reliance on growth hormones and antibiotics. Producing one pound of ground beef requires an estimated 1,800 gallons of water, 1,600 sq.ft. of land, 6-12lb. of feed, and one gallon of gasoline. Cultivated meat grown in a laboratory is emerging to challenge the status quo of the meat industry.
Examples of cultivated meat, also known as cell-based meat, have been developed that can mimic the flavor, texture, nutrition, searability, and appearance of conventional meat, and this has spiked interest among consumers. The Good Food Institute has indicated that as many as 60% of consumers are open to trying cell-based meat in a restaurant or trial setting. Industry transparency (via communication of data on nutrition, digestibility, bioavailability, flavor, texture, and other organoleptics) plus good scientific communication of benefits will be crucial for wider public acceptance and adoption.
According to various sources, the global cultured meat market is currently valued between $43 and $340 million. The wide variance reflects how this nascent industry is emerging from early-stage scaling and regulatory hurdles as it becomes more mainstream. However, with demand pushing aggressively for sustainable alternative protein sources and enhanced food security, some analysts, such as Grand View Research, have projected that growth in this sector will explode to between $1.1 and $6.9 billion by the early 2030s.
Getting Cultured
Animal-free meat has finally entered the marketplace with truly cruelty-free, nature-identical products such as cell-based pork and poultry. Image courtesy of Mission Barns, Inc.
Cultivated meat is produced in the controlled, sterile environment of a bioreactor using three components: medium, catalyst, and substrate. The medium is the liquid environment containing the various nutrients that support cellular growth inside the bioreactor. Volumes in these reactors typically range from 100-1000 liters, although some hold up to 20,000 liters. The cell culture medium contains water plus essential nutrients such as inorganic salts, amino acids or protein hydrolysates, glucose, vitamins, lipids, buffering agents to control the pH, recombinant proteins, and growth factors (specialized signaling proteins or hormones that trigger cell proliferation and differentiation into muscle and fat).
Some growth factors used include: FGF-2 (Fibroblast Growth Factor), vital for keeping cells multiplying without maturing too early; IGF-1 (Insulin-like Growth Factor), essential for accelerating cell growth, survival, and metabolic glucose uptake; and TGF-β (Transforming Growth Factor-beta), crucial for structural cells like mesenchymal stem cells to grow and form tissue frameworks.
The most abundant amino acid added to the growth medium is L-glutamine. It acts as a vital energy source and a nitrogen donor for nucleotide and protein synthesis and supports the rapid growth and viability of mammalian cells. Since in an aqueous environment L-glutamine degrades into toxic ammonia over time, metabolite levels must be monitored closely. Changes in the growth medium composition can trigger undifferentiated cells to differentiate into the skeletal muscle, fat, and connective tissues of meat.
More exotic cell-derived products, such as quail fois gras—already available overseas—might have an easier path toward organic status because of what they replace. Image courtesy of Vow Group Pty, Ltd.
The two proteins at the highest concentration levels in the media are albumin and transferrin, both typically from recombinant sources such as yeast and bacteria. Albumin is a multifunctional carrier delivering fatty acids, vitamins, and hormones to the cells. It also offers shear protection for the delicate cells. Transferrin binds and transports iron into animal cells and keeps iron soluble at neutral pH levels in order to promote cell viability, growth, and tissue differentiation.
Cellular Growth
Cultured meat is grown from stem cells taken from living animals. A cell bank is developed in which a population of donor cells is frozen to ensure a permanent, uniform supply for future use. Cells are fed an oxygen- and nutrient-rich medium to allow for growth to high densities. Many of the nutrients are typically purchased as a powdered blend that must be reconstituted with sterile water to create a liquid medium. Sodium bicarbonate can be used to adjust the pH, and the final solution is sterilized through filtration. The specific combination of nutrients is optimized for cell type and final product requirements.
Previously, the medium was supplemented with fetal bovine serum (FBS), but there has been a push for the use of animal-free recombinant components to drive cell growth. The drawback is these ingredients are more expensive and can be in short supply. Recombinant proteins are costlier due to their high purity and certification for rigorous quality standards as pharmaceutical-grade ingredients. Traditionally, such added ingredients have not been approved for organic certification.
The substrate is the material the cells grow on or derive nutrients from; in bioprocessing it sometimes is referred to as the feedstock consumed by cells. These are called scaffolds, and they can be collagen- or plant-derived (alginate, cellulose, fungal mycelium, or textured soy or pea protein).
The seeding of cells onto a scaffold is a critical step, and the scaffold plays a vital role in ensuring the efficient transport of oxygen, nutrients, and waste products to and from the cells. The type and porosity of an edible scaffold can determine the final quality of the cultured meat. Exposure to high shear stress in the bioreactor can have negative consequences on cell viability; however, the porous nature of scaffolds can offer protection from this shear stress.
Finally, the catalyst is an ingredient that accelerates biological or chemical reactions within cells, but without itself being consumed. Catalysts can be cellular or recombinant enzymes. Bioreactors can also employ immobilized enzymes for downstream processing. Conversely, the living cells themselves can act as biocatalysts, using their endogenous enzymes to convert nutrients into muscle tissue under tightly controlled bioreactor conditions.
The simple truth is, cultivated meat and seafood addresses multiple environmental issues, global food security, and sustainability challenges that gaining organic status will only enhance. Image courtesy of ForSea, Ltd.
Joining the Organic Bandwagon
The Organic Trade Association (OTA) is the main business group for the North American organic industry. It defines “organic” by a strict system of government standards for growing and processing food and goods that protects soil, builds healthy ecosystems, and prohibits synthetic chemicals. These standards require that products bearing the organic label are produced without the use of toxic and persistent pesticides, synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, antibiotics, synthetic hormones, genetic engineering, sewage sludge, irradiation, or other excluded practices.
The global organic food and beverage market is valued at approximately $225 to $291 billion. It is projected to expand past $600 billion during the next decade, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 11% to 15%. According to Fortune Business Insights, total certified organic product sales in the US are projected to reach $94.2 billion in 2026.
Cell-based products and organic standards eventually will have to intersect. Currently, to be certified as “organic,” the product must contain a minimum of 95% certified organic ingredients (excluding water and salt). The remaining 5% must come from approved non-organic substances. There have recently been a number of companies, such as Upside Foods, Aleph Farms, and BlueNalu Inc., selling or on the verge of selling laboratory-grown, cell-based cultured meat and seafood products.
While there are still certain challenges, the greatest hurdle for organic cell-based meat is more theoretical than material since organic meat and poultry already exists. Image courtesy of Aleph Farms, Ltd.
Cell-based seafood holds the promise of having the greatest positive ecological impact due to the disastrous effects of global overfishing and destructive commercial fishing methods. Image courtesy of BlueNalu, Inc.
Since genetic engineering is not permitted under the “organic” definition, a new definition must be created for cultivated meat products. “People who eat organic products want foods as close to nature as possible, without pesticides and GMOs, and cell-based meat products don’t currently meet those criteria,” notes Ken Roseboro, founder of The Organic & Non-GMO Report. According to the Good Food Institute, plant-based scaffolds or media ingredients could potentially introduce trace pesticide residues.
“At this time, there is no established pathway under the USDA National Organic Program for certifying non-GMO cultivated or cell-based meat as organic,” adds April Vasquez, Chief Certification Officer for California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF). “Whether such products could qualify for organic certification is ultimately a policy question that would need to be addressed by USDA through rulemaking or other regulatory guidance. GMOs are prohibited from organic production, so, of course, if the products are made with GMO yeast, bacteria, or animal cells, they would not be certifiable.”
But organic certification could be possible if the growth media used to culture the yeast or bacteria can be certified as organic. These novel cell-based foods could be certified pesticide- and animal-free, and they could provide a traceable chain of custody for their sub-ingredients. If each ingredient complies with the organic standard, then the final product can be considered organic. There are currently no cell-based meat products certified as organic.
Organic certification is based on compliance with a comprehensive set of federal standards governing agricultural production and handling. Those standards include requirements related to production practices, traceability, and the prohibition of excluded methods such as genetic engineering. Because cultivated meat is an emerging technology that does not fit neatly within the existing regulatory framework, the organic status of these products remains unresolved.
Image courtesy of GOOD Meat, Inc.
“Until USDA and/or National Organic Standards Board provide specific direction or guidance, certifiers cannot determine whether cell-based meat products would be eligible for organic certification,” Vasquez concludes.
Cultivated meat production holds immense promise for addressing global food security and sustainability challenges. Currently, the production process remains expensive, primarily due to the high costs associated with the use of recombinant proteins and growth factors, use of serum-free media, and scalability concerns. Yet with the technology advancing fast, costs will come down.
Costs can be lowered by developing a process to successfully re-use spent growth media by filtering out harmful metabolites and/or by creating hybrid products, in which cultivated animal cells are combined with plant-based ingredients.
Time will tell when a workable “organic certified” definition can be developed for cultivated meat products. If all the ingredients that go into such a product from bench to shelf can be certified organic, it is not implausible to consider the reality of organic cell-based meat and poultry inevitable. After all, organic-certified meat and poultry from real animals already exists, and how much more in keeping with the stewardship of the Earth represented by organic certification would nature-identical, animal-free products be?