7 minute read
Lab-grown meat
Lab-grown meat
While analogues may satisfy some consumers, the die-hard meat-eating habits of others have led to a race-to-market for meats produced via non-agricultural methods
The first prototype burger made from lab-grown animal cells was unveiled in 2013 by Professor Mark Post, later chief scientific officer of Mosa Meats and, at the time, it seemed more science fiction than viable solution — not least because it cost €250,000 to produce 22 But Mosa's announcement sounded the starting gun in a race to bring the first lab-grown (also known as cultured or 'clean') meat to market.
The process involves extracting cells from an animal (non-invasively) and plying them with nutrients and growth factors (sugars, salts, pH buffers, amino acids, micronutrients and proteins) This causes the cells to proliferate and form muscle tissue, fat, or connective tissue
As well as entailing a massive reduction in carbon footprint of meat production, cultured meats contain no antibiotics, helping to reduce antibiotic resistance and food borne disease, and the levels of fat and cholesterol can be controlled to make meat-eating healthier
Like Mosa Meat, many of the start-ups are working on beef Israel’s Aleph Farms, which has produced a prototype minute steak, is focusing on beef first because cattle are the most environmentally problematic livestock 23 Others are betting on early differentiation: California-based Memphis Meats is working on poultry; Dutch-based Meatable 24 and the UK's Higher Steaks 25 are both concentrating on pork; and Singapore's Shiok Meats 26 has opted for cultured crustaceans
Despite the international activity and multiple millions of investment from venture capitalists and traditional meat companies, like Cargill and Tyson Foods, the most ambitious estimates put lab-grown meat on dinner plates in about two years' time. Others maintain five years is more realistic. The main technical challenges are finding affordable growth media and production and supply chain scale-up. Moreover, cultured meat has not received regulatory approval in any market to date; in Europe, companies will have to compile and submit a dossier under the novel foods regulation
Once they get there, the rewards will be considerable The AT Kearney report predicted that cultured meat will outpace even meat analogues by 2040, with a 35% market share 27
Precision fermentation
To improve sustainability in the food ingredients sector, there is an urgent need for alternative, nonagricultural sources of compounds that serve a functional role in formulations, such as emulsifiers, stabilisers, colourants, and flavouring compounds.
'Precision fermentation' is a process for producing complex organic molecules, such as proteins, through programming of micro-organisms According to a 2020 report released by think tank ReThinkX28 it has the potential to seriously disrupt the dairy and livestock sectors within the next 10 years by enabling cheaper food ingredients that are functionally equivalent to the real thing
While precision fermentation is not new per se, biotech advances have meant the per kilo cost of production has reduced massively over the last two decades, from US$1 million in 2000 to $100 today And in 10 more years ReThinkx predicts that casein and whey produced via fermentation will be 5 times cheaper than their dairy-derived counterparts 28
One particularly intriguing fermentation technology has been developed by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and spun out into a start-up called Solar Foods. Its flagship ingredient, Solein, is produced using water, electricity and CO2 to feed a secret strain of bacteria found in Finland The protein is dried to powder containing 65-75% protein, 10-20% carbohydrates, 4-10% fats, and 4-10% minerals 29
The innovation has been dubbed 'post-photosynthetic food production', since it does not require sunlight Neither does it need land or irrigation, making it greener than plant-based protein production Solein is also self-sufficient; it needs no carbohydrates, protein and fats to grow, unlike cultured animal cells.
In September 2019, Solar Foods entered a strategic collaboration with Finnish manufacturer Fazer Foods to research the ingredients' use in different food applications Again, though, we won't be dining on Solein until at least 2021, since the novel foods dossier has yet to be completed 30
Solein won't be lonely in the marketplace, either In November 2019, Californian company Kiverdi heralded the development of a meat-like product made from Air Protein, an ingredient produced using a similar process Kiverdi say:
"The process to create [Air Protein] uses elements found in the air and is combined with water and mineral nutrients. It uses renewable energy and a probiotic production process to convert the elements into a nutrient-rich protein with the same amino acid profile as an animal protein and packed with crucial B vitamins, which are often deficient in a vegan diet." 31
Do cellular and acellular agriculture hold the answer to producing sustainable ingredients?
Emilia Nordlund, D Sc (Tech ) heads VTT’s Food Solutions team, targeting more unrefined plant-based foods and developing new product and processing concepts for an efficient and sustainable future food chain.
Emilia Nordlund, D.Sc. (Tech.), Head of VTT Food Solutions
“Cellular agriculture refers to the use of single cell organisms or cell cultures for food production. People have usually heard of animal cell propagation techniques known more commonly as cultured or clean meat; however, cellular agriculture also covers other cell-based or microbial food production systems. Take for instance the use of cultured plant cells as fresh food, or the use of microbial organisms for single cell protein production and recombination of protein technologies. By fermentation, these techniques enable large-scale production of functional proteins, like animal proteins, in heterologous expression systems.”
“When the cells are used for food, like single cell proteins and plant cells, we can talk about cell-based food ingredients. On the other hand, when we harness the microbes to produce a certain protein or component and purify it from the cell mass and culture media, we talk about acellular food ingredients.”
“When we harness microbes and vertically scalable bioreactors for food use, we can clearly decrease the carbon footprint and land use of the food production. If we can provide alternatives for meat and animal-based products, the environmental benefits can be significant. For ethical reasons, giving up animal farming should be our final target. Cellular agriculture can also provide safer and more controllable production of food, as we are not dependent on climate and soil quality, and do not need to use antibiotics!”
Visit Fi Global Insights to read the full interview with Emilia Nordlund bit ly/cellular-acellular-agriculture
Gene editing
Another technology with the potential to boost sustainability in the food sector is CRISPR gene editing via the cas-9 enzyme CRISPR-cas9 allows scientists to quickly and cheaply edit existing genes within an organisms using DNA clusters (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) Unlike genetic modification, it does not involve splicing genes from one organism into another. 32
One food company that is working with CRISPR-cas9 technology is Israeli start-up Equinom, which attracted investment from agri-chemical giant BASF in late 2019 Equinom specialises in breeding crops with desirable properties for food ingredients, including increasing protein levels in soybeans, peas, and other legumes, thereby lowering their price point as meat alternatives 33
Another is Michroma, which uses CRISPR-cas9 for the production of novel compound food colourings from filamentous fungi. The company originally sought to produce a red colour as an alternative to cochineal from beetles but is now investigating a spectrum of other hues with lower carbon, water, and land-use footprints than plant-based colourings 34
And Corteva Agriscience, the agriculture division of DowDuPont, has used CRISPR-cas9 to develop a new variety of waxy corn, used as a thickener and stabiliser 35
A second gene editing technique is known as TALEN (transcription activator-like effector nucleases) - that is, restriction enzymes that can be engineered to remove certain DNA sequences within cells TALEN is being used to manipulate crops for better nutrition and reduced allergens For instance, Calyxt has used it to turn off the trans fat genes in soy beans, giving them a healthier fat profile. It may well find uses to boost sustainability in the future 36
Development teams will be hoping that European consumers will be more receptive to CRSIPR and TALEN than they have been to genetic modification. That is by no means a given, however, as EU regulators have decreed that gene editing falls under GM regulations, which require clear labelling on products containing over 0 9% GMO ingredients 37
