Cultivated meat is at the growing centre of a €23bn food tech boom, sucking up major investments including over €60m of government, private and NGO funds in the UK.
A full safety assessment of two lab-produced foods is also underway by the country’s Food Standards Agency (FSA), which could see the products shelf-ready in two years.
This assessment falls in line with the organisation’s “pioneering” regulatory programme for cell-cultivated foods, a two-year programme between regulatory experts and scientists from academic bodies and CCP industry.
The aim is to gather rigorous scientific evidence about CCPs to inform the FSA and Food Standards Scotland’s regulatory systems.
Four companies have already applied for regulatory approval for cultivated meat products in the UK, following approval gained by Meatly last year for CCP pet food.
Experts, including Dr Emily Nytko-Lutz, patent attorney at intellectual property law firm Reddie & Grose, believe the UK industry is in a strong position to lead the category not only in science and IP, but with products to market.
Cultivated meat approved around the world
“Cultivated meat has been approved in other countries around the world and I think that the UK regulators are in the position to do this here within the next two years,” she says.
Though the sector is still at the early stages of its growth, with various makers working on multiple ways to produce cultivated meat.
“If you think of something like a steak, it has different tissues and differentiated cells,” she explains. “You have different parts of the steak responsible for the various properties, such as muscle cells, tissue, fat cells and blood vessels all contributing to taste, texture and aroma.”
It’s not an easy thing to replicate, while there are also many factors in the process making it a difficult thing to achieve. Different cells must be arranged in different ways to achieve anything that’s like a steak, she adds.
That’s why early CCPs were things like pâté, mince and sausages, because the cells could be placed together without so much order.
To bring them together into a cut of steak, chicken or pork, for example, requires still experimental processes and technologies. All of which requires investment in IP, which companies and academic institutions are protective of.
“There’s a large number of patents around bioprocess design. The whole process of growing cells and meat,” says Nytko-Lutz.
“How do you improve efficiency and bring down cost? There are different types of bioreactors to use, such as those allowing the cells to be free in suspension, which is a challenge for animal cells, then bioreactors where they’re attached to scaffolding. Then there’s the media and the strategies to harvest.”
Some might question the efficiencies of multiple outlets create working towards the same goal separately and producing a variety of technologies to do so.
Nytko-Lutz, however, points out the complexities of creating steak or chicken without slaughtering and butchering a cow or broiler.
Different cultivated meat innovations
“There are different solutions and I think that innovation and individuality of thought is important,” she says. “These innovation and differences are critical, because you don’t just want to be eating one type of chicken or steak, you want to be allowing for greater consumer choice.”
This is where patents come into play, as it encourages organisations to perfect processes which can then be shared under license without risk of IP theft. Allowing for further technological advancements.
Six companies worldwide currently have marketing authorisation or are already on aisles:
- Good Meat
- Upside Foods
- Vow
- Aleph Farms
- Mission Barns
- Meatly
There’s also opportunity to produce meats that aren’t replacements for existing proteins, like meat or seafood. With organisations looking at creating vitamin and mineral-dense products.
The sector, however, is currently limited by its scale. It can only produce in small batches with a technology that is expensive, due to the cost of medical grade media and other components.
Only when products come to market and innovation brings costs down will the category become more mainstream.
