The meat was It is part of the human diet since before we find the fire, but it is becoming increasingly evident that the production of meat on scale is more injury to the environment and the world than a benefit.
In all cultures and geographies, animals have been such a vital part of the food chain that is difficult to imagine a world where animals are not placed on the knife to produce protein.
However, innovation cannot be stopped, and alternative protein sources are increasingly becoming a choice people prefer to make.
Cell-grown meat is one such source. Also known as cultured or laboratory-grown meat, this process uses animal cells to make meat without slaughter. Although the nascent sector is a hot topic for the benefits it promises, the process remains slow and expensive.
Investments in this sector are heating up, however. If 2021 was something to pass, there are plenty of companies and investors eager to climb and accelerate the process – and do it profitably.
However, it’s still unclear when lab-grown meat will reach the kind of scale needed to see it in your local grocery store.
This is not a revolution, this is a transformation, and it will take time. Friederike Grosse-Holz
High steaks
Cell-grown meat owes its growing popularity, at least in part, to some of the macro challenges the world faces with food production. Excessive cultivation, climate change caused by man and decreased sources of water are contributing to a future food insecurity will be a gigantic problem.
Prospects are grim: the United Nations estimates food production will have to double to feed the about 10 billion people are expected to populate the planet by 2050. As for protein, people around the world consumed about 324 million metric tons of meat By 2020, and this number is set to climb even higher.
Changing the way we grow and produce food is key to solving this problem, and we already have systems like vertical farming to solve the problem of overgrowing, as well as protein sources other than meat. Currently, alternative proteins represents only about 2% animal protein market, but is expected to increase more than 7x by 2025.
“We’re trying to answer Paris Agreement, but we can’t address that without addressing the food system and how we produce meat, eggs and dairy,” said Sharyn Murray, senior investor engagement specialist at the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit that advocates for meat production. reimaginated. “The conversion rate for input calories versus output calories is seven to eight calories for a chicken by an output calorie, while on the grounds is an input calorie and one output.”
Cultured meat is just one of the approaches to meeting future demand for protein, along with fermentation and plant-based techniques. Murray and others I spoke to referred to the movement as “a massive transformation of the food system that will take time.” Meaning the change won’t happen overnight, Murray said.
There is also only one company with cell-cultured meat products available on the market today: Eat Just, whose subsidiary GOOD Meat has received regulatory approval to produce and sell its cell-cultured meat in Singapore. Eat Just also recently received approval to sell chicken breasts made with cell cultures.
A nugget made of chicken meat cultivated in the laboratory is seen during a media presentation in December in Singapore, the first country to allow the sale of meat created without slaughtering any animal. Image Credits: Nicholas YEO / AFP / Getty Images
Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just, said the movement is here even though people are not yet buying much flesh cultivated in the laboratory.
“It’s still small-scale, and the most important thing that we’re doing that other companies should be doing is focusing on the large-scale design, engineering and installation of vessels and the support systems to do a lot of that.”