Currently browsing posts about: Cell-based

In big news for the cell-cultured meat industry, the FDA has done its version of approving production of cellular chicken.

Here, in inimitable FDA-speak, is the agency’s essentially tacit approval of UPSIDE Foods, Inc’s cultured chicken cell material:

Based on the data and information presented…we have no questions at this time about UPSIDE’s conclusion that foods comprised of or containing cultured chicken cell material resulting from the production process defined in CCC [Cell Culture Consultation] 000002 are as safe as comparable foods2 produced by other methods. Furthermore, at this time we have not identified any information indicating that the production process as described in CCC 000002 would be expected to result in food that bears or contains any substance or microorganism that would adulterate the food.

And here’s what The Guardian has to say about this breakthrough.

With Singapore currently the only country in which lab-grown meat products are legally sold to consumers, the US approval could open the floodgates to a new food market that backers say is more efficient and environmentally friendly than traditional livestock farming.

That’s the big news.

But there’s more:

• Wilk makes yogurt using milk from cultivated cells: The Israeli company is the first to create a finished dairy product that has been produced by cells grown outside of an animal.
• Tracking the cell-based meat space: SuperMeat shows off a cultivated turkey prototype in time for Thanksgiving, and Steakholder Foods holds its first U.S. tasting.

Here are my questions:

• How does this stuff taste?
• Is it better than chicken?
• Will anyone want to eat it?
• If they do, can UPSIDE do this at scale?
• What will this chicken substitute cost?
• Is this really better for health and the environment?

I can’t wait to find out.

Tomorrow: What’s happening with plant-based meat alternatives.

***********

For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.

TODAY: Petaluma, 140 Kentucky, Copperfield’s Books, 7:00 p.m.  Information is here.

**********

Nature Food has an issue devoted largely to the topic of cell-based meat.

It is worth reading for getting an idea of where current thinking is on this issue, and also because of Phil Howard’s latest take on power on industry the cellular food category.

See his commentary article below.

• Editorial: Cellular agriculture and food systems priorities
• Feature: Cellular agriculture could be a game-changer or just another spot on the supermarket shelves, Karl Gruber
• Comment & Opinion

• Cultured meat needs a race to mission not a race to market, Dwayne Holmes, David Humbird, Jan Dutkiewicz, Yadira Tejeda-Saldana, Breanna Duffy et al.Comment
• A virtue-ethical approach to cultured meat, Carlo Alvaro
• Cultivated meat as a tool for fighting antimicrobial resistance, Eileen McNamara & Claire Bomkamp
• Thick and thin food justice approaches in the evaluation of cellular agriculture, Garrett M. Broad & Robert M. Chiles
• Cellular agriculture will reinforce power asymmetries in food systems, Philip H. Howard
• Challenges of assessing the environmental sustainability of cellular agriculture, Hanna L. Tuomisto
• The triple bottom line framework can connect people, planet and profit in cellular agriculture, Marianne Jane Ellis, Alexandra Sexton, Illtud Dunsford & Neil Stephens
• Transforming a 12,000-year-old technology, Bruce Friedrich

Research Highlight: The price is right for artificial meat, Anne Mullen

***********

For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.

None of this stuff is on the market yet, which is good or bad depending on how you look on it.  Maybe it’s just me, but these in-the-works products seem weird beyond belief.

Here’s what I’ve collected recently.

• Human milk the next challenge for cellular ag: Why not make human milk in a lab? As improbable and far-fetched — and maybe even blasphemous — as it may seem, scientists are working on doing just that. More than that, some are predicting the final product will be available in three or four years. “Startups are racing to reproduce milk in the lab,”… Continue Reading
• Opalia’s Animal-Free Milk Is Now One Step Closer to Supermarket Shelves:  Canadian foodtech startup hits key milestone on the road to commercialization by eliminating fetal bovine serum from its cell-based milk manufacturing.
• Cultivated meat, cell-cultured meat, lab-grown meat? Comments submitted to USDA over how best to label meat and poultry made from animal cells grown outside of animals reflect the challenge facing US regulators as they seek to nail down nomenclature in this nascent market as startups in the space edge closer to commercialization…. Read more
• The Bloody Secret Behind Lab-Grown Meat: Maybe we can’t have our steak and eat it guilt-free, too.
• Making cultivated meat ‘bleed’ with red algae: ‘Even cell-based meat looks pale; it will need our solution’:  New red microalgae discovered by Israeli start-up Yemoja adds ‘bloody’ juiciness to plant-based burgers and steaks, as well as cultivated meat products…. Read more

Even weirder, but perhaps more palatable, is making protein out of air.

• How Air Protein is making the journey from concept to product: The startup that makes carbon dioxide into a meat analog has been turning science and the need for more sustainability into something co-founder and CEO Lisa Dyson says can feed the world.

And here is a report from Food and Water Watch

• ‘Lab Meat’ Industry is Big Ag in Disguise:  New research shows that plant-based meat props up industrial farm system.

I’m seeing considerable confusion about the difference between cell-based and plant-based meat alternatives.

Cell-based products are not yet on the market, except in Singapore.  Plant-based products are everywhere, and I will deal with them separately tomorrow.

For an example of the confusion, Phil Howard’s op-ed in Civil Eats was first titled Giant Meat and Dairy Companies Are Dominating the Plant-Based Protein Market, but his informative diagram refers to cell-cultured meat and fish alternatives, those that start with cells of animal origin.  Civil Eats, ever careful, fixed the headline so it now reads, Op-Ed: Giant Meat and Dairy Companies Are Dominating the Plant-Based and Cellular Meat Market.  

Today, lets stick to cell-based, beginning with Joe Fassler‘s thoughtful analysis in The Counter: “Lab-grown meat is supposed to be inevitable. The science tells a different story.”

That science tells us:

• Manufacturers consistently miss targets for product release.
• Production costs are astronomical.
• Even if costs can be reduced, production volume can never match real meat.
• Producing cell-based meat to scale means keeping it free of contaminants (difficult, if not impossible)
• Fetal blood serum, a necessary ingredient, requires animals to be slaughtered.
• Cell culture facilities are resource-intensive.

In the meantime, here are some of the latest developments in regulation, image, and celebrity investment.

• USDA seeks comments on labeling cell-based meat: The notice, available in the Federal Register online, is a step toward establishing a regulatory framework for these products.
• Cell-based disruption: How many factories, and at what capacity, are required to supply 10% of the meat market?  If the cultivated meat industry were to set the ambitious target of supplying 10% of the global meat market, how much product would be required? How many factories, containing how many bioreactors, would need to be built? And where?… Read more
• Cell-based or cell-cultured: What’s the best name for next-gen seafood made from fish cells?
• With terminology ranging from cell-based to cell-cultured, cultivated, clean, and in vitro, how can consumer research help industry settle on one single term for next-gen seafood made from fish cells?… Read more
• Ad: How Aqua Cultured Foods plans to own the whole cut seafood analog space: Today Aqua Cultured Foods, a Chicago female-founded startup, announced their use of fermentation technology to create seafood alternatives with an incredibly realistic taste, texture, and nutritional profile…The company has developed whole-muscle cuts using biomass fermentation and a specific strain of fungi to deliver a high protein content comparable to cod, plus fiber and Omega-3s, without fat or cholesterol.
• Eat Just Raises $97 Million More to Fund Cultured Meat Production: The investment, which was part of a round announced in May that raised $170 million, came from new groups including Resilience Reserve, a venture capital fund, and existing backers like hedge fund UBS O’Connor and Graphene Ventures. This brings the round to $267 million, making it the largest ever for cultivated meat, which backers say will help to meet the world’s rising demand for animal products in a more humane and environmentally friendly way. Eat Just is also adding Dan Glickman, a former U.S. agriculture secretary, to its advisory board, and Jim Borel, a former executive at DuPont, to its board of directors.
• Leonardo DiCaprio invests in cultivated meat firms Mosa Meat and Aleph Farms:  Cultured meat innovators Mosa Meat and Aleph Farms have secured the backing of high-profile investor Leonardo DiCaprio, known for his Academy Award winning roles as well as his environmental activism…. Read more

And here’s a summary of the latest research on concentration and power in cell-based agriculure.

• Democratizing ownership and participation in the 4th Industrial Revolution: challenges and opportunities in cellular agriculture:  In this paper, we have sought to engage the nascent feld of cellular agriculture in conversation with the political economy of agriculture scholarship, namely, on the inescapable question of whether or not this emerging technology will further concentrate wealth and power in the global food system. Innovation without meaningful inclusion has led to inequality, distrust, environmental crises, and social disintegration, and the world’s biggest tech companies are well positioned to continue disrupting and absorbing traditional industries in the coming decades…Critically important and valuable innovation, including agroecological approaches to food production, also continues to come from non-industrial contexts.