Currently browsing posts about: Meat substitutes

Cell-Based or Cultured Meat continues to generate predictions, positive (new products, new approvals, growth) and negative (doom, bans).

Current status: The FDA and USDA have approved sales of cell-cultured chicken but the only place selling it is Bar Crenn in San Francisco (where I have not been).

While waiting for it to get scaled up (if this ever will be possible), here are a few items I’ve collected recently.

THE POSITIVES

• A new window opens for the emerging lab-meat industry:  Joint regulation of cell-cultured meat by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has not brought transparency to  the novel food. To help fill that transparency gap, the Center for the Environment and Welfare (CEW) has announced the launch of LabMeat.com, a new website to educate the public… Continue Reading.
• ‘People want to eat meat,’ SCiFi Foods CEO on first production run, potential of cell-cultivated meat:  Food-tech company SCiFi Foods inches closer to releasing its hybrid meat product that consists of a blend of cell-cultivated beef and plant proteins, upon completing its first commercial-scale production run, company co-founder and CEO Joshua March told FoodNavigator-USA…. Read more
• Israeli Company Gets Green Light to Make World’s First Cultivated Beef Steaks. An Israeli company has received a preliminary green light from health officials to sell the world’s first steaks made from cultivated beef cells, not the entire animal, officials said. The move follows approval of lab-grown chicken in the U.S. last year.
• ‘Essentially real meat, just grown differently’: Ivy Farm’s CSO on cultivated meat production and commercialisation. UK-based Ivy Farm, which produces cultivated meat, began as a spin-off from Oxford University. Now, says its new CSO, Dr. Harsh Amin, commercialisation is in sight…. Read more
• USDA: ‘We will need cellular agriculture’ to reach climate, food innovation goals:  Sustained government support and transparent scientific research, such as USDA’s landmark grant to Tufts University’s National Institute for Cellular Agriculture program, can energize cellular agriculture R&D and renew attention from the private sector, experts argue…. Read more

THE NEGATIVES

• Lab-grown foods ‘creep people out’, says Natural Grocers:  Cell-cultured or precision fermentation-derived products including meat and dairy alternatives will be rejected by consumers in 2024, US grocery chain Natural Grocers predicts…. Read more
• Cultivated meat labeling puzzle could bring legal headaches:  Though regulators came to a consensus on what to call the namesake product in 2022, continuing debates over package labeling rules could still create headwinds for players in the space.
• Crunch time for cultivated meat: ‘Probably 70-90% of players will fail in the next year’:  on paper, cultivated meat might seem like a no-brainer. Unlike plant-based options, which still don’t quite hit the spot for many consumers, it promises the allure of ‘real’ meat without the ethical and environmental baggage that comes with plundering our oceans and raising billions of sentient land animals for food.
• Italy bans cultured meat: The Italian parliament voted to ban the production, importation, or sale of cell-cultured meat in a step the far-right government called a defense of Italian culture.

THE QUESTIONS

• What’s the Italian Government’s beef with cultivated meat?  The Italian Government recently announced that it would ban cultivated meat production, at the same time restricting meat-related labels on plant-based meat alternatives. The decision has drawn significant criticism from some quarters, but from Italy’s perspective, the ruling is motivated by a desire to protect culinary traditions as well as key stakeholders such as farmers…. Read more.
• What is the environmental impact of cultivated meat?  While the verdict is still out on the sustainability of cultivated meat production, a panel of experts during the Tufts University Cellular Agriculture Day on Jan. 11 in Boston, Mass., are optimistic, citing the need for expansive data sets on more diverse cell culture mediums, bioreactors and energy sources…. Read more
• Is cultivated meat a threat to farming? EU countries clash over cellular agriculture’s future: According to delegates from Italy, France and Austria, cellular agriculture practices represent a threat to primary farm-based approaches and ‘genuine’ food production methods. … Read more

I’m trying to keep up with what’s happening with cultivated meat.  So far, the FDA has approved a couple of cultivated chicken cell companies, and these are selling “chicken” in a couple of restaurants, one in San Francisco and the other in Washington DC.

The big issue: scaling cell production up enough to have product to sell.  It takes lots of cells–billions? trillions?—to make a portion big enough to eat.

Here’s what’s going on in this area in the U.S. and U.K.

• • • ‘A defining feature of stem cells is that they can become other cells’: Strategies for the use of stem cells in cultivated meat productionThe production of cultivated meat will need stable cell lines from multiple different species to be successful. It is produced from stem cells, which are highly flexible and can create yields with the potential to be far greater in volume than the meat the cells originated from…. Read more.  
    • ‘Meating’ demand: Animal-based proteins versus cell-based agricultureAs demand for meat and poultry continues to grow, Food Manufacture explores what is driving sales of animal-based protein and whether or not the advent of cell-based meat is truly the herald of things to come, or a half-baked pipedream limited by a lack of resources…. Read more. How cultivated meat could be the key to avoiding the development of antimicrobial resistance: While the ‘routine use’ of antibiotics in animal agriculture is banned in the EU, increasing globalisation can make it difficult to avoid imported meat reared in this way. While the routine use of antibiotics can increase the risk of antimicrobial resistance, cultivated meat could provide a means of mitigating this…. Read more
      • • UK Government looking to fast-track legalisation of cultivated meat: The UK is set to fast-track the approval of cultivated meat as part of a partnership with Israel, the Telegraph has reported. Read more
        • Extracellular opens ‘Europe’s largest’ pilot plant for cultivated meat: Food tech firm Extracellular has opened ‘Europe’s largest’ contract pilot facility dedicated to cultivated meat and seafood production at its site in Bristol. Read more
        • Solving the mainstream adoption of alternative meats on a molecular level: Agilent Technologies global food segment director Lorna De Leoz explores the future of alternative proteins and how new advances in analytical tools can boost mainstream adoption of plant-based and cultured protein. Read more
        • Brazilian giant JBS begins construction on cultivated protein research centre: The JBS Biotech Innovation Centre is expected to open before the end of 2024 after construction work commenced this month (September 2023). Read more
        • ‘For the industry to succeed, there will need to be a ramping up of investment’: The past and future of the cultivated meat market: The number of deals in the cultivated meat market in the first eight months of 2023 has significantly declined since 2022, a report by financial advisory firm Oghma Partners shows. However, strong government investment and potential regulatory approval could provide a boost for the sector…. Read more
        • Episode 8: Alternative proteins: Tune in to this month’s Food Manufacture podcast, where we talk plant-based proteins and the future of the meat alternatives market. Read more. 

My son Charles, who lives in Los Angeles, sent me this gem from the L.A. Times: “The woolly mammoth is back — in the form of a meatball.”

A woolly mammoth meatball has been created from the animal’s DNA — 4,000 years after the beast went extinct.

The dish is made of cultured meat, grown in labs from animal cells. It used the DNA of the woolly mammoth, together with fragments of DNA from an African elephant, which is the animal’s closest relative still alive today.  Vow, the Australian company that created the food...said it hopes that the project will challenge people to reassess the climate damage caused by cows and other livestock.

I don’t know about you but I’m riveted by what’s in the pipeline for cell cultured meat alternatives.   Here are some recent items I’ve been collecting.

Products under development

• Why the first mass-produced cultured meat product won’t be food: While in the long-term, Czech start-up Bene Meat Technologies plans to develop a cell-based steak product for human consumption, its short-term focus has pivoted to cultured pet food, CEO Roman Kříž tells FoodNavigator…. Read more
• Pork and microalgae cells combined in cultivated meat an ‘industry first’: Czech start-up Mewery claims to have developed the first prototype of cultivated meat based on microalgae. The company is already in talks with the Singapore Food Agency, founder Roman Lauš tells FoodNavigator…. Read more
• UK Scientist produce ‘world’s first’ 100% cultivated steak: UK-based scientists have produced the ‘world’s first’ steak fillet made from 100% cultivated meat. Read more

State of the industry

• Cultivated meat in focus at Tufts cellular ag innovation day: From bioreactor bottlenecks to a ‘global battle cry’ for government funding: It’s becoming increasingly clear that early projections about the speed with which cultivated meat might gain market share now seem pretty optimistic. But Rome wasn’t built in a day, and significant progress is being made to build the ecosystem needed to sustain a completely new industry, said key stakeholders at an event run by Tufts University on Thursday…. Read more
• Dissecting cultivated meat regulation part 2: What’s working in the US and Singapore, and what’s not?  Both the US and Singapore have seen cultivated meat products pass through their regulatory processes, yet the two governments approach novel foods in different ways. Which challenges and opportunities exist within these regulatory frameworks, and what impact could they have on Europe?… Read more

State of the techno-food scene

• Soylent acquired by Starco Brands as nutrition company shifts into its ‘natural next stage’: Soylent Nutrition is joining public company Starco Brands as part of an acquisition that will keep the plant-based food technology company operating as a separate unit under its current CEO Demir Vangelov.  As part of the transaction, Vangelov told TechCrunch that he will join Starco’s board and is getting shares in the new company, while himself and Soylent’s shareholders will become the largest single voting block in Starco. Other financial details were not disclosed.

Comment

Cell-based meat, meat-plus-algae, and pet food are not yet on the US market so it’s too early to see what they taste like and how well they will do.  I see these products as mostly about mergers, acquisitions, and generating lots of money for investors, which is why I included the Soylent event (Soylent is a nutrient supplement drink, but I put it in the same category of “techno-food”).

When I saw this tweet from Tom Philpott, I knew immediately what it was about.

I had seen Deena Shanker’s investigative report in Bloomberg News, not least because I’m quoted in it: Fake Meat Was Supposed to Save the World. It Became Just  Another Fad.

The article’s subtitle: “Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods wanted to upend the world’s $1 trillion meat industry. But plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop.”

And then I saw this ad in the January 22 New York Times.

Anonymous Reddit writers saying things like “I suspect it’s coming form [sic] a news outlet paid money to write an article by people who make money from meat sales.”

A badge of honor for Deena Shanker indeed.  Clearly, she hit a nerve.

Meat alternatives still have their fans and I’m not ready to write off fake meat just yet.   But this ad makes me much less sympathetic to this particular Cause.

Ironic addition, January 30: Impossible Foods to lay off 20% of its staff.

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Much is happening in the plant-based food sector.  I love trying to keep up with it.

First, the bad, or somewhat bad, news:

• SPECIAL REPORT: Plant-based dairy and meat by numbers; declining trends continue, but pockets of growth remain: New data from IRI and SPINS shows continued steep declines in sales of refrigerated meat alternatives but pockets of growth in frozen products and some plant-based milk, cheese, and yogurt subcategories, which do not all behave in the same way (spoiler alert: oatmilk is hot, oat yogurt is not)…. Read more
• Meat substitutes contain ‘antinutrients’ that inhibit absorption of iron and zinc: ‘The industry needs to think about the nutritional value of these products’: New research out of Sweden has found that while many meat substitutes are high in micronutrients like iron they are often found in a form that cannot be absorbed by the body…. Read more 
• Business Insider A food fight is raging over what we can and can’t call ‘meat’:  Startups that make plant-based foods are battling the meat lobby for the right to describe their products as bacon, burgers or steak. Read More

Next, the new product launches:

• The latest food and drink plant-based product launches: Food Manufacture looks at some of the latest food and drink product launches in the plant-based and vegan category, including Meatless Farm, Seabloom, Richmond, Innocent and Sheese. Read more
• Voie gras: Nestlé develops plant-based foie gras alternative for European markets: Just six months on from inception, Nestlé’s vegan foie gras alternative is launching into Swiss and Spanish markets under its Garden Gourmet bran. Read more
• Plant-based butter set to revolutionise the art of pastry with low environmental impactBe Better My Friend is a Dutch company set up by chef Marike van Beurden, food scientist Pere Castells and global food strategist Joost Lindeman with a vision to end the bakery sector’s dependency on animal-derived ingredients…. Read more
• Creamy without the cow: ChickP releases plant-based ice cream with ‘a truly rich’ texture: ChickP Protein’s chickpea-based ice cream prototype boasts dairy-like creamy texture and fewer additives…. Read more
• Philadelphia Cream Cheese launches plant-based spread: The product, which is available at select retailers in the Southeastern U.S., is Kraft Heinz’s second non-dairy launch under one of its flagship brands in the last two months.

And where the industry might be headed:

• Food companies invited to collaborate on plant-based research: Plant2Food, a science platform from the Novo Nordisk Foundation, is inviting UK food companies to collaborate on plant and food science and share new knowledge. Read more

Comment: Despite the current drop in sales, I don’t see these products disappearing off the shelves.  There is a demand or them among people who do not want to eat meat or dairy foods for reasons of health, animal welfare, or the environment.  The products need to taste good if they are going to continue to sell.  And they need to become more food-based rather than ingredient-based if they are to overcome concerns about their meeting definitions of ultra-processed.

I will keep following this sector with great interest.  Stay tuned.

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Beyond Meat is taking a beating these days, and this study only adds to its  woes.

Assessing the effects of alternative plant-based meats v. animal meats on biomarkers of inflammation: a secondary analysis of the SWAP-MEAT randomized crossover trial.  Crimarco A, Landry MJ, Carter MM, Gardner CD.  J Nutr Sci.  2022;11:e82.  doi:10.1017/jns.2022.84

Abstract: Alternative plant-based meats have grown in popularity with consumers recently and researchers are examining the potential health effects, or risks, from
consuming these products…the purpose of this work was to conduct a secondary analysis of…a randomised crossover trial that involved generally healthy adults eating 2 or more servings of plant-based meats per day for 8 weeks (i.e. Plant phase) followed by 2 or more servings of animal meats per day for 8 weeks (i.e. Animal phase). Results of linear mixed-effects models indicated only 4 out of 92 biomarkers reached statistical significance. The results were contrary to our hypothesis, since we expected relative improvements in biomarkers of inflammation from the plant-based meats.

Conflicts of interest: “Gardner [the senior author] received gift funding from Beyond Meat which was used to conduct the original research study.”

Comment:  This is a follow up to the original research, which I wrote about previously.  That study found a positive result:

A diet that includes an average of two servings of plant-based meat alternatives lowers some cardiovascular risk factors compared with a diet that instead includes the same amount of animal meat…This study found several beneficial effects and no adverse effects from the consumption of plant-based meats.

The investigators tested the effects of substituting Beyond Meat for animal meats on 92 biomarkers of inflammation.  They found hardly any to be improved by the Beyond Meat substitution.

This disappointed the investigators but I’ll bet it disappointed Beyond Meat even more.

This study was not specifically funded by Beyond Meat.

This work was supported by Stanford University’s Precision Health and Integrated Diagnostics Center (PHIND) and in part by a training grant from the NIH National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute [T32 HL007034].

It is consistent with the overall observation that industry-funded research tends to find results favorable to the sponsor’s interest; independently funded research can go either way.  See my book, Unsavory Truth, for details and references.

Thanks to Stephen Zwick for sending this one.

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Uh oh.  Plenty of bad news in the plant-based meat arena.

I.  Partnership with health organizations. 

The plant-based meat company, Beyond Meat, is partnering with the American Cancer Society to sponsor research on the potential benefits of plant-based meat to cancer preventon.

Beyond Meat, Inc., a leader in plant-based meat, and the American Cancer Society (ACS), today announced a multi-year agreement to advance research on plant-based meat and cancer prevention, as well as to help ACS continue to build the foundation of plant-based meat and diet data collection. The commitment aims to advance the understanding of how plant-based meats contribute to healthy diet patterns and their potential role in cancer prevention and is a crucial step towards long-term research in the plant-based protein field.

Here’s the Cancer Society’s rationale:

Since 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified red meat as a carcinogen that increases the risk of colorectal cancer, and recent studies also suggest a possible role of red and/or processed meats in increasing the risk of breast cancer and certain forms of prostate cancer.  For years, the American Cancer Society investigators conducted foundational work identifying the link of red and processed meat to cancer…ACS guidelines point to evidence of a significant link between high red and processed meat consumption and an increased risk of colorectal cancer as the primary reason for the recommendation to limit those products.

OK, but research sponsored by a company that stands to benefit from studies showing a benefit of highly processed plant-based meat substitutes?

My prediction: the studies will show benefits.

If the ACS wants such studies, it should fund them on its own.

II.  Dirty factories.

Bloomberg News has a report on unclean and unsafe conditions in a Beyond Meat factory.

III.  Loss of customers.

The New York Times says Beyond Meat is struggling.

But these days, Beyond Meat has lost some of its sizzle.

Its stock has slumped nearly 83 percent in the past year. Sales, which the company had expected to rise as much as 33 percent this year, are now likely to show only minor growth…In late October, the company said it was laying off 200 people, or 19 percent of its work force. And four top executives have departed in recent months, including the chief financial officer, the chief supply chain officer and the chief operating officer, whom Beyond Meat had suspended after his arrest on allegations that he bit another man’s nose in a parking garage altercation.

What investors and others are debating now is whether Beyond Meat’s struggles are specific to the company or a harbinger of deeper issues in the plant-based meat industry.

IV.  Business issues.

The Wall Street Journal reports: “Beyond Meat’s Very Real Problems: Slumping Sausages, Mounting Losses.”

Mr. Brown has said Beyond and other meat-alternative companies are facing challenges as they compete with less expensive real meat at a time of inflation and consumer uncertainty over the health benefits of what many see as highly processed products.

IV.  More research needed.

A study looking at the implications of replacing meat with plant-based alternatives makes that point clearly.

See: Santo RE, et al.  Considering Plant-Based Meat Substitutes and Cell-Based Meats: A Public Health and Food Systems Perspective.  Front. Sustain. Food Syst., 31 August 2020.

Research to date suggests that many of the purported environmental and health benefits of cell-based meat are largely speculative…The broader socioeconomic and political implications of replacing farmed meat with meat alternatives merit further research.

An additional factor to consider is that much of the existing research on plant-based substitutes and cell-based meats has been funded or commissioned by companies developing these products, or by other organizations promoting these products.

Of course we need more research.  Don’t we always?

The bottom line:  It’s hard to convince people to like fake foods, especially when they are expensive.

Soylent Green, anyone?

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