Researchers in many countries are looking for alternatives to traditional meat because farming animals is helping to drive up global temperatures.
Even Hollywood stars have been jumping on the alternative protein bandwagon with with Leonardo Di Caprio among the most vocal. But aside from film stars, where are Wall Street and some of Europe’s biggest institutional investors putting their money?
We take a look at three of the hottest areas of this deliciously weird science.
Grow a burger
No longer just the vision of a Margaret Attwood novel stuffed with chickienobs, in December 2020, Singapore became the first country to approve the sale of protein grown entirely in a laboratory.
Scientists start by harvesting muscle cells from an animal, nutrients are steadily then added to feed those cells and grow the meat into tissue – this stew is called the cell media, which is then cultivated.
San Francisco-based start-up, Eat Just, is now selling its lab-grown chicken nuggets in Singapore, a move that’s part of the country’s long-term security strategy so it can be less dependent on its neighbours for food imports.
© Getty Images Eat Just chicken nuggets are now on sale in SingaporeSo, what are the barriers to many other countries doing the same? “The real driver for all of this is getting regulatory approval,” says Dr Carsten Gerhardt, a partner at consultancy AT Kearney, which analyses the food and agriculture sectors.
Some countries have more appetite for this than others. In Europe, the Netherlands is at the forefront of lab-grown meat technology where analysts expect producers Moas Meat and Meatable to push for EU regulatory approval in the next few years. In the US, it is widely expected that Bill Gates-backed Memphis Meats and New Age Meats will do the same.
But regulation isn’t the only hurdle to scaling-up and expanding the cultured-meat business, bringing down ingredient costs will be crucial.
Most producers are still working with pharmaceutical-grade ingredients and nutrients, but if “those could be lowered to normal food quality grades instead, then costs would come down significantly”, explains Mr Gerhardt.
One part of the standard recipe involves growing cells in a syrupy bath of Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS), taken from pregnant cows’ blood but Dutch scientists have now successfully replaced it and other animal components in its process.
© Mosa Meat Meat-less meatball: Mosa Meat has found alternatives to using animal components in its production“For ethical reasons, as well as for the simple reason FBS is very expensive and we could never produce meat at large scale for a broadly accessible price, we’ve succeeded in developing our own entirely animal component-free growth media,” ” a company spokesperson for Mosa says.
Still, farming meat in a lab is a slow, energy-intensive process and optimising this will also mean making the series of heating and cooling steps involved, much more energy efficient, although Jessica Almy, vice president of policy at The Good Food Institute says some producers are not that far off.
Two separate studies out earlier this year found that, with investment, the production cost of cultivated meat could drop to compete with conventional meat by 2030. The Life Cycle study showed cultivated meat is also projected to comprise a staggering 35% of the global meat market by 2040.
Several glowing reports suggest lab-grown meat may bring big environmental benefits – lower emissions plus less land and water usage than conventional farming. However, a more recent US study on expanding in-vitro production warns those benefits could come at the expense of much more intensive energy use as the whole process moves away from agriculture and becomes industrialised.
Cyrille Filott, global strategist for consumer foods for Rabobank, says the question is how many boxes the lab grown product will tick for “early adopters” to remain interested. “Taste, texture, price, sustainability, a long list of boxes. Will the novelty wear off or stick?”
Mr Filott adds that an important intermediate milestone will be the acceptance of hybrid products. Hybrid products are plant-based meat substitutes that contain lab grown ingredients such as fats. If these products are accepted by the consumer, he says the development of fully lab-grown products might accelerate.
© Getty Images 3-D printers can be pre-programmed to slowly build liquid food layers in to almost any shape
Print a burger
A handful of firms are now working on 3D printers that could construct this dinner while you wait, by printing thousands of pre-programmed, sliver-thin layers, stacked on top of each other.
The “ink” used is your food in paste format: printers that can design bespoke pancakes, ice cream and confectionery are already popular in some high-end supermarkets.
However, Ms Almy says companies are now testing the water with much more sophisticated versions. 3D bio-printing can print cells and materials together to create a more complex structured product, like a marbled beef steak.
© BBCNew Tech Economy is a series exploring how technological innovation is set to shape the new emerging economic landscape.
Extrusion technologies which have been used in the food industry for years – think hot dogs and pasta – are also being applied successfully in cultivated meat production. Barcelona firm Novameat has come up with one of the most realistic alternative meat products so far, thanks in part to its founder Giuseppe Scionti’s expertise in bioengineering and tissue regeneration.
It uses micro-extrusion tech to intricately print plant-based proteins in layers that build up in to a large cut of meat strong enough, and with the right texture, to be sliced with a carving knife, like a Sunday roast.
© Getty Images Bringing down costs will be crucial if plant-based meat substitutes are to achieve mass-market salesWorking with the faculty of biomedical engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Israel-based firm Aleph Farms also created the worlds’ first lab grown rib eye steak in this way, using 3D printing, in February.
Alternatively, 3D printing can be used to create scaffolds from plant-based materials that allow cells to attach and grow into the final meat-based product. And if all this wasn’t exciting enough, some printers then zap the result with lasers that will sizzle the food until it is cooked.
Wrap a burger
Nanotechnology, or the science of manoeuvring teeny-tiny things around, is more commonly talked about in the manufacture of chips for phones, than fries. However, it also has many potential applications in the food sector. Using miniscule nanomaterials it is now possible to create packaging that keeps the products held inside edible for longer.
Nanopack is a cling-film-like prototype for packaging that has smaller-than-the-eye-can-see mineral nanotubes dispersed inside it – these hold natural essential oils from plants like oregano and thyme with antimicrobial properties.
The nanotubes slowly release antimicrobial oils from the film into the headspace of the packaged food which actively slows down oxidation, moisture changes and microbial growth, says Prof Ester Segal from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology who oversaw the project.
Early experiments showed the film prevented the growth of mould in bread by three weeks and extended the sale time of fresh cherries and shelf life of cheese by 40% and 50%, respectively.
The supermarket of the future may go even further, incorporating intelligent food packaging with tiny nanosensors, which Dr Seda Erdem at Stirling University adds may “report and relay” updated information back to the shopper about their contents.
© Getty Images 3D printed sweets and chocolates are already making their way on to the high streetAnd what about when it comes to manipulating the food itself? Research from several countries shows almost endless possibilities – to enhance the flavour and texture of foods, reduce fat content, or to encapsulate nutrients such as vitamins to ensure they do not degrade during a product’s shelf life.
In this area however, UK regulator, The Food Standards Agency in its latest report still seems a little queasy, taking a very a cautious stance as it remains unclear what the long-term impact of tinkering with these tiny building blocks could be on the rest of the food chain.
