Research Articles

Cultured meat has come a long way since 2013. What was once a concept from the realms of science fiction, made in tiny quantities in research labs for astronomical costs has now become an emerging industry, with start-ups across the world racing to become the first to successfully produce cultured meat on a commercial scale.

IDTechEx has recently released "Agricultural Robotics Market 2022-2032", a market research report exploring the technical and market factors that are shaping the emerging industry around agricultural robotics. Based on IDTechEx's technical and industry analysis, the agricultural robotics market size is forecast to reach $6.7 billion by 2032.

Plant-based meat has increasingly been making headlines in recent years, as product sales swell and industry investment continues to reach dizzying heights.However, this is only the beginning. Plant-based meat producers are increasingly looking towards a range of emerging technologies to create the next generation of hyper-realistic plant-based alternatives.

Sales of plant-based meat have grown sharply in recent years, buoyed by the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting meat supply chains and putting increasing scrutiny on the conventional meat industry. Reflecting this, investments into the plant-based meat industry have also risen rapidly, with the industry raising over $1.4 billion in 2020 alone.

IDTechEx has recently released "Cultured Meat 2021-2041: Technologies, Markets, Forecasts", a market research report exploring the technical and market factors that are shaping the emerging industry around cultured meat. The cultured meat industry has received significant attention in recent months, following the world's first approval of a cultured meat product for commercial sale in Singapore in December 2020.

Carbon capture technology may be essential in helping the world in the fight against climate change, however, capturing CO2 from point sources not be enough to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. A potential solution is direct air capture (DAC) technology. Does DAC justify the excitement or is it doomed to fail?

In December 2020, Singapore made headlines by becoming the first country in the world to approve a cultured meat product for commercial sale. The regulatory approval and subsequent commercial release of a cultured meat product caused a surge of excitement around the world, with many wondering where the next region to approve cultured meat for sale will be.

There are significant research efforts aiming to boost the effectiveness of CO2 capturing technology and facilitate deployment of what could be a vital technology in the fight against climate change.

Each year, April 22nd marks Earth Day, a worldwide event that aims to diversify, educate and activate the environmental movement. To mark Earth Day 2021, here are some of the technologies that IDTechEx believes will be instrumental in winning the fight against climate change.

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is generating much enthusiasm across the world, with the hopes that it could play a major role in the fight against climate change. However, amidst this enthusiasm, the industry suffered an apparent setback in mid-2020 when the Petra Nova facility in Texas, then the world's largest CCUS facility for a coal-fired power station, was closed down.

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies are likely to play a key role in the fight against climate change, with the UN estimating that CCUS could mitigate between 1.5 and 6.3 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalents per year by 2050. The world has already taken its steps along this pathway, however, for CCUS to have a meaningful impact on emissions in a timely manner, it will need to scale up hundreds of times compared with today's levels.

Singapore has become the first country on Earth to approve cultured meat for commercial sale. On December 2nd, the Singapore Food Agency said that the cultured chicken produced by San Francisco-based start-up Eat Just met the safety standards for use in nuggets, opening the door for a commercial launch in the country.

2020 has been a challenging year for the food and agriculture industries, however, the crisis caused by the COVID-19 outbreak has led to several opportunities in the global food and agriculture industry, particularly for alternative and novel food systems.

The recent IDTechEx report, "Plant-Based and Cultured Meat 2020-2030", explores the technologies and market factors that are shaping this emerging industry. Here are five things IDTechEx learned from this recent event.

Plants host complex communities of microbes, which can have a significant impact on crop yields and quality, both positively and negatively. Until recently, it was generally believed that almost all microbes were detrimental or neutral to plant life.

Vertical farming is growing quickly. The recent IDTechEx report, "Vertical Farming 2020-2030" explores the technologies and market factors that are shaping this rapidly expanding industry.

The recent IDTechEx report, "Genetic Technologies in Agriculture 2020-2030: Forecasts, Markets, Technologies", explores the use of genetic technologies within agriculture and the impact that they are having on global farming.

IDTechEx explore five companies at the forefront of the cultured meat revolution, based on analysis from the recent report, Plant-based and Cultured Meat 2020-2030.

Global agriculture is facing some serious challenges over the next century, with decades of reliance on chemical fertilizers and pesticides beginning to take their toll. IDTechEx discusses how agricultural biologicals could be part of the solution to these challenges.

In 2018, China enacted its "National Sword" policy, effectively banning the import of most waste plastics and materials heading for the nation's recycling processors in an attempt to stop the wave of soiled and contaminated materials that were overwhelming the country's processing facilities and threatening it with a major environmental problem.

Vertical farming, the practice of growing crops indoors under tightly controlled conditions, is continuing to expand rapidly.

Cultured meat, the idea that meat products can be artificially grown in a lab without requiring the slaughter of animals, has been attracting headlines.

Bioplastics, plastics made from a biological feedstock, could be a renewable and more sustainable alternative to fossil-based plastics. Unlike the vast majority of fossil-based plastics, many bioplastics are biodegradable, which could help provide a solution to the dizzying escalation in plastic waste seen across much of the world. And although bioplastics have historically struggled to deliver the same performance as fossil-based plastics, technology is increasingly closing the gap, creating highly functional plastics that do not cost the Earth. "Bioplastics 2020-2025", the recent report by IDTechEx, explores the emerging technologies around bioplastics and forecasts the future of the industry over the next five years.

The world has a problem with plastic waste. Despite global plastic production continuing to accelerate, recycling rates remain stubbornly low, with only about 15% of the 400 million tonnes of plastic currently produced annually being recycled.

Genetically modified (GM) crops are unpopular. Despite their vast potential to help improve global food security while reducing pesticide use, many countries are extremely resistant to planting GM crops, with 85% of global GM agricultural land coming from just four countries: the US, Brazil, Argentina and Canada.

Which Is Better for the Environment? In recent years, plastic production has accelerated, with global plastic set production to reach 600 million tonnes by 2030 if production continues at its current rate of growth. Most of this plastic is not biodegradable, with 30-50% of it being produced for single-use applications.

Humans have been manipulating the DNA of the organisms around us in agriculture for thousands of years, using selective breeding to create sweeter fruit, hardier grains, cows that produce more milk, and many more valuable traits.

Although the exact origin story of the COVID-19 outbreak is still uncertain, it is highly likely that the virus began as a zoonotic disease, i.e. an infectious disease caused by a pathogen that jumped from animals to humans.

By the time fresh produce reaches stores, it has often lost quality and freshness. It also risks contamination from passing through several middlemen along the way. Vertical farming could help overcome these problems in the tradition supply chain.

Empty supermarket shelves have become a common sight in recent weeks. Coronavirus Has Highlighted the Problems in Supermarket Supply: Could Vertical Farming Be The Solution?

The world has a plastics problem. Every day, approximately 8 million pieces of plastic make their way into the world's oceans and plastic pollution can now be found on every beach in the world, from busy tourist beaches to uninhabited tropical islands.

Meat is big business. The global industry is worth over $2 trillion and JBS, the world's largest meat company, makes over $50 billion in annual revenue. This article from Dr Michael Dent discusses the sustainability problems in the meat industry and what can be done?

Plastic pollution is rapidly becoming one of the world's biggest environmental issues as increasing production of single use plastic products far outweighs the world's ability to deal with them.

Vertical farming is the practice of growing plants indoors under fully controlled environmental conditions in many stacked layers, using artificial lighting instead of relying on the sun. By tuning the growing environment to the exact needs of the plant and using soil-free growing techniques, vertical farming can achieve yields hundreds of times higher than conventional agriculture, 365 days a year and without requiring pesticides.

Memphis Meats a leading start-up in the race to develop cultured meat products, recently announced that it had closed a $161 million funding round. IDTechEx Analyst Dr Michael Dent discusses what this means for the commercialisation of the cultured meat industry.

2019 has been a big year for plant-based meat substitutes. Spurred on by consumer perceptions of healthiness and a global megatrend towards conscious consumptions, sales of plant-based meat grew by almost 40%, compared with 2017. In the three months after going public, plant-based burger maker Beyond Meat's share price surged by 500% and rival Impossible Foods secured an additional $300 million in funding.