Lab-grown meat: How it is made and what’s at stake 

Lab-grown meat is animal meat cultured in a controlled environment outside the animal body. Also known as cultivated or cultured meat, it includes chicken, beef, seafood, organ meats, etc. Using the same cell types as in natural meat and organising them in a similar structural pattern, cultured meat may flawlessly mimic the flavour, texture, and nutritional value of regular meat.

Back in 2013, professor and scientist Mark Post introduced the first lab-grown burger patty at a live tasting in London. But it wasn't until 2020 that investment in lab-grown meat began to stream in. Some start-ups started receiving high-profile funding from the likes of Bill Gates and even established meat firms. 

It's like everyone wants to hop on that bandwagon. Now the cultured meat business has expanded to include over sixty companies across six continents, with a combined investment of over $450 million, according to Good Food Institute (GFI). Some of these are technology suppliers. Chinese regulatory officials also showed interest in June 2020 by requesting a  national plan to enter the cultured meat market.

Cell culture, tissue engineering, stem cell biology, bioprocess engineering, and fermentation have all contributed to the current success of lab-cultured meat. Hundreds of firms and institutions worldwide are researching these areas to industrialise lab-made protein products.

In November 2020, Indian startup Clear Meat made headlines by claiming it had successfully cultured chicken mince for around 800-850 Indian rupees when a regular processed chicken costs over 1,000 Indian rupees.

SuperMeat is another start-up which launched a restaurant named 'The Chicken' in Tel Aviv to gauge interest in their lab-made chicken burger in December 2020 while the Singapore Food Regulatory Agency greenlit the world's first cultured meat product for commercial sale. Shortly after the approval, the California-based Eat Just company's cultured chicken bite had its historic debut in 1,880 Singapore restaurants. "At the moment, Singapore is the only place in the world that permits the commercial sale of cultivated protein, also known as lab-grown meat, cultured meat or cell-based meat," reports Bloomberg.

Researchers at MeaTech in Israel are making steaks in a lab. Simon Fried, the business head of MeaTech, says, "When it comes to steak, you're bringing together the full range, essentially, of tissue engineering technologies and cell growth technologies."

In November of this year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved lab-grown chicken for the first time. The chicken was made by UPSIDE Foods. The FDA had "no more questions" regarding the safety of lab-grown poultry. 

The CEO of UPSIDE Foods, Uma Valeti, said, "We started UPSIDE amid a world full of sceptics, and today, we've made history as the first company to receive a 'No Questions' letter from the FDA." The company is now waiting for USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service's  green signal before their lab-grown chicken makes it to the super shop shelves.

How lab-grown meat is made

As it contains exactly the same animal cells as regular meat—the flesh of an animal, lab-grown meat is real meat. The only difference is how it gets to your plate, broadly speaking. Traditional meat originates from an animal reared for human consumption, while lab-grown meat is made from cells taken from a live animal or fertilised chicken eggs.

The first cultured burger patty was made from over 20,000 thin strands of muscle tissue. It was grown from stem cells taken from a dead cow, cost over $300,000, and needed two years to produce. From Mark Post's burger patty to Upside's chicken, the story of lab-grown meat has gone through a series of developments in the last decade. 

Obtaining stem cells from an animal is the first step in creating lab-grown meat. This is usually done under local anaesthetic to prevent the animal's pain. Cells are then cultivated in a controlled environment and fed a mixture of amino acids, fatty acids, carbohydrates, vitamins, salts, etc. According to UPSIDE, these components provide the cells with the same kind of nourishment they would get inside an animal's body. The cells are also provided with oxygen and other essential nutrients. The core idea is to mimic the same environment as it gets in living flesh.

Immature cells are triggered to differentiate into the skeletal muscle, fat, and connective tissues that make up flesh when the medium composition changes, frequently following inputs from a scaffolding structure. The cells divide and proliferate to create genuine muscular tissue, which the scientists then mould into edible scaffolds. Using these scaffoldings, lab-grown cells may become burger patties, chicken nuggets, steak, etc. The end result is meat that may be marinated, grilled, baked, or fried.

This process may require two to eight weeks, depending on the type of meat being cultured. It's worth noting that several businesses are using a similar approach to produce milk and related dairy items.

Developing a steak is more complicated than minced meat. The white stuff in a perfectly marbled steak is fat, which gives it flavour. And the pink portion is a muscle, that's for protein. Scientists had to figure out how to recreate both. 

Israeli company MeaTech 3D made the 4oz steak using 3D printing with actual bovine cells that mature into muscle and fat, as reported by The Guardian. In the MeaTech lab, first, they take stem cells from a cow and then grow them in a bioreactor.

Usually, cells grow in a Petri dish or flasks and want to attach to something. Here the cells grow suspended in a liquid where they divide roughly once a day. Then scientists move the mass of cells to the tissue engineering lab, where they make something called bioinks for 3D  bioprinting.

In the printer, there's one nozzle for muscle and one for fat, and technicians can customise how much of each goes into the steak. You can print pretty much any structure and any size that you're able to design.

The steaks are not quite finished when they leave the printing room. The cells still need time to develop into muscle and fat tissue. From a few days up to a few weeks, the muscle fibres start to contract spontaneously in the dish. The process may take about a month. And after that, you can treat it as you would a regular piece of meat. But MeaTech meat is not appearing on the traditional market soon.

Lab-grown meat's widespread adoption may take time, giving consumers time to adjust. An Australian study published in 'Frontiers in Nutrition' indicated that 72% of Gen-Z, aged 18 to 25, have yet to be ready to embrace lab-grown meat just now. Young customers' reluctance to eat lab-grown meat might threaten the industry's future, the scientists said. 

However, if it makes it to the mass market, this will be a game changer for the environment. Experts say that the procedure will consume less water and land than traditional methods once the manufacturing of such meat is ramped up. 

According to a 2020 Nature article, commercial production will be entirely antibiotic-free, reducing the risk of foodborne disease from enteric bacteria. Besides, cultivated meat and other alternative proteins are expected to grab market share from the $1.7 trillion traditional meat and fish business. This will reduce biodiversity loss, deforestation, antibiotic resistance, industrialised animal slaughter and zoonotic disease.