Top stories in Cultivated Meat – February 2024

The cultivated meat sector is active in February 2024, with the ongoing pursuit of taste and texture, ethical considerations about loobies activities, fascinating research results, and financing challenges within this burgeoning industry.

The quest for a perfect vegan marbled steak intensified, reflecting a growing consumer demand for plant-based meats that closely mimic the texture and taste of traditional meats. This effort underscores the industry’s focus on enhancing product quality to meet the nuanced preferences of consumers, many of whom are still seeking alternatives that offer a comparable eating experience to conventional meat.

On the corporate front, Ivy Farm, a UK-based company, is a notable player for its unique business-to-business model within the alt-meat sector, specializing in the development of harvested cell lines. This approach distinguishes it from peers, underscoring the diversity of strategies companies are adopting to carve out niches within the cultivated meat ecosystem. Similarly, Genuine Taste’s innovation in cultivating animal fat cells without slaughtering animals represents a significant step towards integrating real animal flavors into plant-based meats, offering new possibilities for product development.

The industry faced setbacks, as evidenced by UPSIDE Foods pausing its plans for a large-scale cultivated meat plant, reflecting operational and strategic challenges. This development, alongside Finless Foods’ staffing reductions and operational pivot, signals the volatile funding environment and the hurdles companies face in scaling up production. The last report of AgFunder shows a a sharp decrease in funding for cultivated meat startups, signaling a cooling off after the peak investment year of 2021. This downturn underscores the need for the whole industry to navigate financial uncertainties while continuing to innovate and scale.

Internationally, the Japan Association for Cellular Agriculture outlined ambitious goals to enable the sale of cultivated meat by 2026, highlighting the global dimension of regulatory and market readiness for these products. This contrasts with the challenges in the US and Europe, where regulatory and political hurdles continue to shape the sector’s landscape.

Legal and ethical discussions intensified, with significant developments including the recognition of cultivated meat as potentially Halal by Singapore’s Islamic Council, providing a pathway for broader acceptance in Muslim markets. Additionally, debates around the political and ethical dimensions of cultivated meat continued, with discussions focusing on sustainability, animal welfare, and the potential for monopolization by large-scale producers.

Research initiatives underscored the interdisciplinary nature of cultivated meat development, with studies exploring the impact of cultured meat on society, the potential for significant reductions in production costs through new cell creation techniques, and the environmental benefits of transitioning to cellular agriculture.

See you next month!

News

Holy Grail: The Race for the Perfect Vegan Marbled Steak February 22, 2024
Globally, too, plant-based meat’s texture is as important as their conventional counterparts for 75% of consumers, but only about 60% are actually satisfied with the former. “Consumers want a texture and mouthfeel that’s close to meat,” Shannon Coco, strategic marketing director at Kerry, told FoodNavigator last year. “Without this, the… Read more: Holy Grail: The Race for the Perfect Vegan Marbled Steak

Editor’s blog: ‘Let’s make it a crime’ February 2, 2024
And while we argue, both sides distracted by gut emotions caused by misinformation and exaggeration, the politicians pushing these laws are lining their pockets with donations from those lobbyists who have the most to gain from keeping our food system exactly as it is today. Source: Editor’s blog: ‘Let’s make… Read more: Editor’s blog: ‘Let’s make it a crime’

The biggest technology failures of 2023 – MIT Technology Review February 1, 2024
But journalists soon learned that Upside was a bird in borrowed feathers. Its big tanks weren’t producing its flagship “whole textured chicken” filets; to produce those it was growing chicken skin cells in much smaller laboratory flasks. Thin layers of cells were then being manually scooped up and pressed into… Read more

Compagnies and key players

From the MeatingPod vault: Ivy Farm’s slice of the supply chain February 28, 2024
Ivy Farm is a UK-based cultivated meat company helping to build the alt-meat industry in that region. Ivy Farm’s business model is different from most: strictly b-to-b, focusing on just one part of the process — in this case, developing and growing the harvested cell lines, which are handed off… Read more: From the MeatingPod vault: Ivy Farm’s slice of the supply chain

Animal fats could soon be in plant-based meats — but not how you think February 21, 2024
Mamaghani, co-founder of meat alternative company Genuine Taste, said they harvested cells from an anesthetized cow (who woke up afterwards) and now grow animal fat cells in a lab. Cultivated fat, he stressed, is “real animal fat without slaughtering animals.” “We took a few stem cells from an animal and… Read more: Animal fats could soon be in plant-based meats — but not how you think

UPSIDE Foods hits pause on large-scale cultivated meat plant February 20, 2024
Less than five months after announcing its first commercial-scale cultivated meat plant in Glenview, Illinois, UPSIDE Foods has hit pause on its Chicagoland plans and is instead focusing on expanding its far smaller ‘EPIC’ site in Emeryville, California.According to emails sent to staff by UPSIDE Foods founder and CEO Dr.… Read more: UPSIDE Foods hits pause on large-scale cultivated meat plant

Japan Association for Cellular Agriculture: “Working to Achieve the Sale of Cultivated Meat in Japan from 2026” February 18, 2024
JACA is working on policy recommendations to encourage the government to finalize policy on the safety of cultivated foods by the end of 2024 (the year of the Osaka Expo), so that discussions on issues such as food labeling, will be completed by the end of 2025 and the products… Read more: Japan Association for Cellular Agriculture: “Working to Achieve the Sale of Cultivated Meat in Japan from 2026”

Rough waters for Finless Foods February 13, 2024
After making a big splash in 2022, with a $34 million fundraise and distribution of its plant-based tuna product to restaurants, Emeryville, Calif.-based Finless Foods, which makes both plant-based and cultivated seafood, seems to have found itself in rough waters. Source: Rough waters for Finless Foods | Alt Meat

Cultivated seafood co Finless Foods reduces headcount February 11, 2024
Finless cofounder Mike Selden did not respond to our calls or emails to address rumors that the firm is going into ‘hibernation’ mode, but told delegates at the Future Food-Tech summit in San Francisco last March that the funding environment for cultivated meat and seafood was getting increasingly challenging Source:… Read more: Cultivated seafood co Finless Foods reduces headcount

Ivy Farm Anticipates Regulatory Approval After Creating Cultivated Meat Scotch Egg With Fortnum & Mason February 7, 2024
The product co-developed with Ivy Farm — which journalists were invited to taste last week — is not vegan, as the centre is made from conventionally produced quail eggs. However, the use of Ivy Farm’s cultivated beef mince by a retailer indicates that regulatory approval may be on the horizon… Read more: Ivy Farm Anticipates Regulatory Approval After Creating Cultivated Meat Scotch Egg With Fortnum & Mason

Reinventing the eel: first lab-grown eel meat revealed February 4, 2024
The first lab-grown freshwater eel meat has been produced, potentially solving a diner’s dilemma. Rampant overfishing has caused eel populations to plummet and prices to soar, but the cultivated eel could provide the delicacy guilt-free. The eel meat was produced by Forsea Foods in Israel from embryonic cells of a… Read more

Market, investment, prospective

How to Blend Worldviews for the Future of Agriculture & Climate February 12, 2024
The result of these contrasting opinions is stasis, according to a new report by British think tank Green Alliance. Titled Crossing the Divide, the report argues that policymakers are confused over the best course of action for agriculture, and end up doing little to nothing about it for that reason.… Read more: How to Blend Worldviews for the Future of Agriculture & Climate

Cultivated meat funding nosedives in 2023 February 10, 2024
As AgFunder crunches the numbers for its forthcoming annual global agrifoodtech investment report, preliminary data shows that funding for cultivated meat startups peaked at $989 million in 2021, dipped slightly to $807 million in 2022 (bolstered by a $400 million round into UPSIDE Foods) and then dropped off sharply in… Read more

Laws, ethics and lobbies

What is cell-cultivated meat, and why do Republicans want to ban it? The political crusade against lab-grown meat, explained February 24, 2024
Cell-cultivated meat is the latest flashpoint in a long-running fight over the future of protein; meat and dairy analogues made from plants, like oat milk and pea-based Beyond burgers, have already been targeted by hostile politicians. Over the last decade, as these products entered the mainstream, lawmakers in around 30… Read more: What is cell-cultivated meat, and why do Republicans want to ban it? The political crusade against lab-grown meat, explained

The correct conversation around cultivated meat: more sustainability and animal welfare, less fear mongering February 8, 2024
The note raised the concern of cultivated meat being monopolised by a few industrial scale producers. Currently the vast majority of over 160 companies working on the product are independent startups, but to ensure that cultivated meat can be produced by farmers and companies of different sizes in the future,… Read more: The correct conversation around cultivated meat: more sustainability and animal welfare, less fear mongering

Cultivated Meat Can Be Halal: Singapore’s Islamic Council February 6, 2024
The sole entity with the legal power to issue halal certificates in Singapore, Muis’s fatwa ruled that cultured meat can be halal if the cells are sourced from animals Muslims are allowed to consume (for example, chicken but not pork), and there’s no mixing of non-halal components in the manufacturing… Read more: Cultivated Meat Can Be Halal: Singapore’s Islamic Council

Netherlands sets up new committee to review lab grown meat & seafood products February 3, 2024
The Netherlands is one step closer to allowing cultivated meat tastings. The Dutch government has set up an Expert Committee to assess whether cultivated meat products can be tasted safely, and the first companies have already submitted their applications. The Cellular Agriculture Netherlands Foundation (CANS) hopes to allow the first… Read more

Research

Cultivated Meat and Alternative Protein Sources February 27, 2024
This cross-journal collection on “Cultivated Meat and Alternative Protein Sources” is a collaboration between Nature Communications, npj Science of Food, Communications Biology and Scientific Reports. This rapidly growing field combines materials science, stem cell technology, tissue engineering and other disciplines to generate meat and alternative protein options that are more… Read more: Cultivated Meat and Alternative Protein Sources

You’ve tried plant-based meat, but here come meat-based plants February 25, 2024
A team of South Korean researchers at Yonsei University have developed a hybrid rice variant that’s quite literally filled with beef. The lab-grown rice grains were infused with cow muscle and fat cells, so they are one part plant and one part meat. The rice is also an appetizing shade… Read more: You’ve tried plant-based meat, but here come meat-based plants

Major new interdisciplinary study will track impact of cultured meat on society February 19, 2024
Law, sociology and biochemical engineering experts have joined forces to assess the risks and impact of cultured meat, a novel alternative animal protein, as part of a major new interdisciplinary study funded by the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society with support from the Leverhulme… Read more: Major new interdisciplinary study will track impact of cultured meat on society

Cultivated Meat Production Costs Could Fall Significantly with New Cells Created at Tufts February 17, 2024
“FGF is not exactly a nutrient,” said Andrew Stout, who was at the time lead researcher on the project and is now director of science at Tufts Cellular Agriculture Commercialization Lab. “It’s more like an instruction for the cells to behave in a certain way. What we did was engineer bovine… Read more: Cultivated Meat Production Costs Could Fall Significantly with New Cells Created at Tufts

Transition to cellular agriculture reduces agriculture land use and greenhouse gas emissions but increases demand for critical materials February 9, 2024
Our findings indicate that a transition to cellular agriculture by 2050 could reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by 52%, compared to current agriculture emissions, reduce demand for phosphorus by 53%, and use 83% less land than traditional agriculture. A maximum 72% replacement of livestock products with cellular agriculture using renewable… Read more