Agriculture
Eco-friendly, Lab-grown Coffee is on the Way, but it Comes with a Catch By Nadra Nittle NOTE: Your DAWN Team presented a companion article on Lab-grown Coffee in the Dawn October-November issue on page 52 available on the ABA website at www.africabusinessassociation.org.
HEIKO RISCHER ISN’T QUITE SURE how to describe the taste of lab-grown coffee. This summer he sampled one of the first batches in the world produced from cell cultures rather than coffee beans. “To describe it is difficult but, for me, it was in between a coffee and a black tea,” said Rischer, head of plant biotechnology at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Tanks in Atomo’s factory. The food tech startup is making which developed the coffee. “It depends beanless coffee from plant waste. Photograph: Atom really on the roasting grade, and this was a bit of a lighter roast, so it had a little bit more VTT’s coffee is grown by floating cell cultures of a tea-like sensation.” Rischer couldn’t swallow the coffee, as this in bioreactors filled with a nutrient. The process cellular agriculture innovation is not yet approved requires no pesticides and has a much lower for public consumption. Instead, he swirled the water footprint, said Rischer, and because the liquid around in his mouth and spit it out. He predicts coffee can be produced in local markets, it cuts that VTT’s lab-grown coffee could get regulatory transport emissions. The company is working on a approval in Europe and the US in about four years’ life cycle analysis of the process. “Once we have time, paving the way for a commercialized product those figures, we will be able to show that the that could have a much lower climate impact than environmental impact will be much lower than what we have with conventional cultivation,” Rischer conventional coffee. The coffee industry is both a contributor to the said. American startups are also working on beanless climate crisis and very vulnerable to its effects. coff ee. In September, Seattle-based Atomo Coffee Rising demand for coffee has been linked to deforestation in developing nations, damaging released what it called the world’s first “molecular biodiversity and releasing carbon emissions. At the coffee” in a one-day online pop-up, charging $5.99 same time, coffee producers are struggling with a can. The startup, which has raised $11.5m, makes its the impacts of more extreme weather, from frosts coff ee by converting the compounds from plant to droughts. It’s estimated that half of the land used to grow coffee could be unproductive by 2050 due waste into the same compounds contained in green coffee. Ingredients, including date seed extracts, to the climate crisis. In response to the industry’s challenges, chicory root, grape skin as well as caffeine, are companies and scientists are trying to develop and roasted, ground and brewed. This method results commercialize coffee made without coffee beans. see page 46 45
November-December 2021
DAWN
www.africabusinessassociation.org
