Sustainability: Study on the New Food Revolution

Announcing a new trend study on cultured meat and its impact on society, the food industry and the future of meat consumption by GABA member Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.

With the demand for meat and seafood rising globally, today’s unsustainable means for production continues to be highlighted by the harmful impact on the environment, land and water consumption, animal welfare, and animal foodborne illness. Cultured meat and seafood production can supplement the global supply, but without those negative consequences.

In short, a small tissue sample is taken from the animal of interest, then the cells are grown with a nutrient rich culture medium in bioreactor tanks, similar to making beer in a brewery, prior to being formed into the final meat product. To bring the products to manufacturing at scale at price parity to conventional meat, cost and scale up will be the overarching challenges. For example, cell culture media accounts for half of the costs in the manufacturing process today. To address this, innovation efforts are focused on raw materials, removing animal derived components, and formulation optimization to lower cost, while driving media productivity to increase cell yields.

Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany is a leading supplier in biopharma, and through their vast expertise in cell culture media and bioprocessing tech, they are focused on enabling safe cultured meat and seafood production at scale. They published a comprehensive trend study on cultured meat and its impact on society, the food industry and the future of meat consumption. As a key player in the industry, Their objective was to drive and initiate discussions and provide room to talk about cultured meat beyond the technologies and projects they work on. Read and download it here: https://www.emdgroup.com/en/research/innovation-center/innovation-fields/cultured-meat/trendstudy.html