It was August 5, 2013, when the first burger made from lab-grown beef stem cells was cooked and tasted at a press conference that had everything of the TV set. Under the intrigued and attentive gaze of hundreds of journalists, Josh Schonwald, food writer, Hanni Rützler, nutritionist and food trend researcher, and Mark Post, the scientist “behind” the hamburger, each forked a bite of that prototype entirely similar to a classic piece of meat. An early specimen cost years of research and about 250,000 euros.
In the years since that epiphanic moment, research and investment have rushed to exponential growth, glimpsing in that new cellular-based product a frontier to be reached-and surpassed-in order to arrive at a novel way of producing animal-derived food that could be more sustainable and more ethically acceptable than the current supply chain.
Thus, in 2020, Singapore became the first country to approve human consumption of cultured meat (in detail, of crispy chicken nuggets), while two years later the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave its green light. Thus, in June 2023, the two California startups Eat Just and Upside Foods were the first to gain regulatory approval to sell meat grown in America. For now, however, both companies serve their cultured chicken only in exclusive restaurants: the three-Michelin-starred Bar Crenn in San Francisco and Chef José Andrés’ restaurants in Washington, D.C.
The framework for the sale of meat grown in the European Union
Meanwhile, laboratory-grown meat cannot yet be found commercially in the European Union, although some members are investing not a few resources in research. For example, the Netherlands made history in April 2022 when the government announced 60 million euros to support the creation of a national cellular agriculture ecosystem. Within the Union, cultured meat is currently considered a novel food and therefore subject to the Novel Foods Regulation (EU) 2015/2283. To be produced and sold in the domestic market, it must first be authorized by the European Commission and thoroughly evaluated by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
“Any applicant wishing to market food or food ingredients derived from cell cultures must submit an application to the European Commission,” Wolfgang Gelbmann, senior scientific officer at EFSA, explains. “Once the application is declared valid, EFSA is tasked with conducting a safety assessment within nine months based on the studies, data and information contained in the application and available in the scientific literature. This includes, for example, toxicological and/or human studies, characterization of the product and the process used to produce it. After EFSA’s safety evaluation, the European Commission and EU member states decide whether or not to grant a marketing authorization for the novel food and the conditions of its use.”
Of the approximately 240 applications for safety assessment received by EFSA for novel foods as of 2018, to date, none yet concern foods of animal origin derived from cell cultures. “In the case of cell-cultured meat, a thorough evaluation of all stages, from the creation of suitable cells, to their cultivation and further processing into the new final food that could reach consumers’ tables,” Wolfgang Gelbmann continues.
“In particular,” the chief scientist explains, “attention must be paid to possible microbiological and chemical contamination of cultured cells, since anything that enters the culture medium can also end up as residue in food. In addition, new foods carry the risk of new allergens. In the case of cultured cells, one might expect new proteins to be produced, which perhaps are not found in the meat of farmed animals or are found in very different amounts. This does not necessarily mean that novel foods derived from cell cultures are unsafe, but it is an issue that would require careful evaluation by EFSA on a case-by-case basis for each application.”
Italy’s position
In contrast to the European Union’s investment in this new field, the Italian Parliament in November 2023 expressed its opposition to cell culture-derived products and passed a bill to ban the production, marketing, and importation of “synthetic” food and feed.
The law argues that this type of meat is unsafe for health and, at the same time, wants to protect products considered to be of “strategic importance to the national interest.” However, a position that could create a competitive disadvantage for Italian companies, instead of protecting them, and could stifle a nascent and dynamic industry. Besides the fact that there is no legal reason for Italy to anticipate such a risk assessment and management process.
Environmental impacts of cultured meat
Cultured meat-often misnamed “synthetic meat”-is produced in the laboratory from stem cells extracted from live but anesthetized animals. To develop and replicate, the cells are placed in culture medium, which is a suitable substrate for their growth, initially obtained from fetal bovine serum but later replaced by nonanimal alternatives. The developing cells are anchored to support structures, polymers in gel form made from decellularized spinach leaves or texturized soybean protein.
Such a system then needs an environment that remains sterile, temperature-controlled, and allows the cells to grow until the process is complete. This requires bioreactors that contain heating and cooling systems, piping to deliver nutrients, and sensors to monitor pH and oxygen. From the point of view of environmental impact, it is precisely bioreactors that are considered the critical points for cultured meat production, as they still require high amounts of energy.
Whether cultured meat has a lower impact in terms of climate-changing gas emissions is an issue still being debated in the scientific world. While early results initially seemed to indicate a significant reduction in energy consumption and water use, recent studies have downplayed the energy and water-saving benefit that would result. Research conducted by the independent CE Delft center on the life cycle assessment of cultivated meat (entitled LCA of cultivated meat Future projections for different scenarios) compared the environmental impact of cultivated meat production with that of meat obtained by conventional intensive techniques, concluding that the production of ingredients for the culture medium and the energy requirements of the bioreactor used are the main factors influencing the environmental impact of cultivated meat production.
In a conventional energy scenario where fossil sources are used, chicken and pork production has a slightly lower carbon footprint than cultured meat, while beef higher. One of the problems noted by the researchers, however, is that ” there are currently no operational facilities for large-scale cultured meat production, all LCA studies on cultured meat are based on models and assumptions supplemented with confidential data collected by startup companies, in the case of an unpeer-reviewed report, and thus have a great deal of uncertainty.”
The environmental benefits of reducing intensive livestock farming
What is certain, however, is that the abandonment–even partial abandonment–of conventional farming systems–from cattle to fish–could “liberate” the occupation of land and water, foiling the felling of large forest systems and creating the conditions for ecosystem restoration. The United Nations report, What’s Cooking? An assessment of potential impacts of selected novel alternatives to conventional animal products, assumes that food systems occupy half of the habitable land and 77 percent of this land is used for the livestock sector. Industrialized livestock production systems and the intensification of agricultural production for food and livestock feed are causing the loss of the structure of the soil (through compaction and erosion) and widespread air and water pollution.
While pesticides are a major driver of pollinator decline and enter the food chain affecting a wide variety of vertebrate species, the input of nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen as a result of fertilizer application can cause eutrophication of freshwater and marine water bodies, depleting them of oxygen and generating harmful algal blooms. Thus, lab-grown meat production could reduce pressure on all terrestrial and marine ecosystems and drastically reduce the decline of biodiversity.
Trends and investments
The market for cultured meat is set to grow, albeit in cyclical phases. According to preliminary data compiled by venture capital firm AgFunder and reported in an article by AFN (the venture’s own corporate masthead), funding for cultured meat startups peaked at $989 million in 2021, declined slightly to $807 million in 2022, and then declined again in 2023 (-78%) to $177 million, amid a -50% decline in overall agribusiness investment.
During a panel on investing in cultured meat at Tufts University, Harris Komishane, head of finance and strategy at Fidelity Investments, noted that “there are a lot of challenges related to scaling and achieving cost parity in cultured meat, which seems to take a lot longer than the venture capitalist world hoped and expected. There is also an underdeveloped ecosystem, so a lot of the early startups in this area had to do pretty much everything because there was no one to outsource to.” Indeed, meat producers in the lab hope that costs can be reduced soon through the creation of new supply chains. Something is already starting to move, and existing companies, such as ADM – Archer Daniels Midland, have begun supplying ingredients for cell growth solutions.
Certainly the research continues, so much so that Australian startup Vow Food has already created a “mammoth meatball” by mixing DNA recovered from frozen mammoth remains with that of modern elephants. A “prehistoric” meatball that is certainly not intended to be marketed for possible grilling but serves to stimulate conversation about the future of food. “The Mammoth Meatball shows the world that when technology meets creativity it can change our future,” said Bas Korsten, Chief Creative Officer of Wunderman Thompson and initiator of the experiment. “Our goal is to start a conversation about how we eat and what future food alternatives can look and taste like. Cultured meat is meat, but not as we know it. It is the future.”
