Cultured meat, otherwise known as cultivated meat or cell-based meat, is an emerging technology area that uses lab-grown animal cells to create meat products without requiring animal slaughter, potentially avoiding the environmental problems of conventional agriculture. Unlike many of today's meat alternatives, cultured meat has the potential to create a product that is completely identical to conventional meat, containing exactly the same cells and tissue.

 

Over the last five years, cultured meat has grown from almost nothing to over 50 companies racing to bring the first products to market, with over $600 million having been invested in the space. In December 2020, the industry received a major boost when Singapore became the first region in the world to grant regulatory approval for the sale of a cultured meat product, a cultured chicken product made by Californian start-up Eat JUST. Many in the industry are excited by the potential of the cultured meat market.

 

However, despite the optimism, the industry still has some major challenges to overcome before cultured meat is in a position to disrupt the $1 trillion conventional meat industry. Cultured meat is still extremely expensive to produce and no company has yet developed a method for producing cultured meat at a commercial scale. Nevertheless, technology has advanced significantly in recent years and many in the industry remain optimistic about cultured meat.

 

This report provides an in-depth technology and industry evaluation of the cultured meat market based on extensive primary research into the sector, including interviews with numerous key players. The report discusses the global meat industry and its sustainability issues, the chemical and physical make-up of meat, the process of making cultured meat, the current state of the cultured meat industry, and the regulations governing it, alongside an evaluation of the key players in the industry. Based on this, the report then provides both 10 and 20-year cultured meat market forecasts, predicting that the global cultured meat market will be worth $1.66 billion by 2031 and $11.13 billion by 2041.

 

 

Cultured meat, or cultivated meat, is produced in a multi-step process. First, biopsies are taken from from an animal, which is usually unharmed by the process. From these biopsies, the relevant cell lines are isolated and converted into stable cell lines that will be used as starter cells for the production process. Ideal starter cells are highly proliferative and can be easily induced into differentiating into the desired final cell type - usually fat or muscle cells. The choice of starter cells is a key decision for companies aiming to produce cultured meat, with the report outlining the benefits and challenges associated with the most common starter cell choices.

 

The starter cells are then proliferated until they reach a large quantity of biomass. This requires treatment with growth medium - a liquid containing the necessary nutrients and proteins to stimulate tissue growth - and is performed inside a bioreactor. When fed this medium, the cells proliferate, doubling in number every few days. Development of the growth medium remains the key R&D challenge facing the cultured meat industry - it is currently very expensive to produce and many companies still rely on fetal bovine serum (FBS), a protein-rich serum generally derived from animal slaughter that is incompatible with scaled-up production. The report discusses some of the key opportunities and challenges in growth medium and bioreactor development, alongside the implications on production costs.

 

Once there is a large enough quantity of proliferating cells, they are induced to differentiate into the mature cells that make up meat, e.g., adult muscle cells. This can require a separate bioreactor. In order to culture three-dimensional meat, rather than just a thin layer of cultured cells, the cells must be grown on a scaffold, which directs the structure and order of the tissue, enabling the cells to grow into their mature form, e.g., muscle tissue. Scaffolds must let nutrients reach the growing cells and must mechanically stretch the cells, 'exercising' the muscles and letting them fully develop. Once they are fully developed, the mature muscle cells are harvested as meat.

 

Producing a commercially viable product from this process is extremely difficult, although technology has progressed rapidly over the last five years and an increasing number of companies have produced prototype products. The key challenge is performing all of the production steps in a cost-effective manner - the first prototype product, a cultured burger developed by Professor Mark Post's research group at Maastricht University in 2013, reportedly cost over $300,000 to produce. Costs have fallen significantly since then - in 2019, Eat JUST claimed that its chicken nuggets cost about $50 each to produce - but reaching cost parity with conventional meat will be an arduous task.

 

 

The cultured meat industry has grown rapidly over the last 5 years and the cultured meat market is rapidly emerging. In 2016, there were less than 5 cultured meat companies, each of which was still performing early proof-of-concept experiments. Now, there are over 50 companies and prototype products are commonplace. Investments into the space have surged in this time period, growing from $250,000 in 2015 to around $300 million in 2020 alone.

 

In December 2020, Eat JUST received regulatory approval in Singapore for its GOOD Meat cultured chicken product, a hybrid product created from plant proteins and cultured chicken cells, the first approval of a cultured meat product. Although Singapore is a relatively small market, it represents a big step for the industry and could accelerate the approval process in bigger markets such as the EU, US and China.

 

Developments over the next few years are set to play a pivotal role in the progress of the cultured meat industry and its potential to disrupt the $1 trillion global meat industry. Cultured Meat 2021-2041, a report from IDTechEx, explores the technological and market factors that will shape the future of the emerging cultured meat market and provides ten- and twenty-year cultured meat market forecasts.

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