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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

cellular agriculture

The USDA Is Seeking Comments About What to Call and How to Label Cell-Based Meat

It looks like the US government is getting serious about putting cell-based meat on consumer plates.

That’s because on Thursday, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced it had opened a 60 day period in which it will solicit comments to questions put forth in an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR).

Some of the topics/questions the FSIS is looking for feedback on include (italicized text excerpted from the notice):

Product name: “Should the product name of a meat or poultry product comprised of or containing cultured animal cells differentiate the product from slaughtered meat or poultry by informing consumers the product was made using animal cell culture technology? If yes, what criteria should the agency consider or use to differentiate the products? If no, why not?

Terminology: What term(s), if any, should be in the product name of a food comprised of or containing cultured animal cells to convey the nature or source of the food to consumers? (e.g., “cell cultured” or “cell cultivated.”)

What do about hybrid farmed/cell-based: If a meat or poultry product were comprised of both slaughtered meat or poultry and cultured animal cells, what unique labeling requirements, if any, should be required for such products?

Can cell-based meat use meat terminology to describe products? Should terms that specify the form of meat or poultry products (such as “fillet”, “patty”, or “steak”) be allowed to be included in or to accompany the name or standard of identity of foods comprised of or containing cultured animal cells?

I expect this process to be somewhat contentious. The powerful lobbying group, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), has shown it’s not a fan of cell-based meat production and will certainly have some thoughts to share during this process. Opponents can be expected to claim that applying terms and product names familiar to consumers from their consumption of traditionally farmed meat to cultured meat will be misleading.

This most recent move by the USDA is part of a process kickstarted way back in 2018 when the USDA and the FDA announced they were beginning to develop regulatory frameworks for the cell-based meat industry.

The division of oversight described in the initial announcement is referenced in yesterday’s announcement:

Under the agreement, FDA will oversee cell collection, growth, and differentiation of cells. FDA will transfer oversight at the cell harvest stage to FSIS. FSIS will then oversee the cell harvest, processing, packaging, and labeling of products.

Since those early days in 2018, cell-based meat has moved off the bench and into pilot production across the globe. Countries like Singapore have outpaced the US in opening regulatory glide paths for making cell-based meat available to consumers. Hopefully this news is a sign that the day when we can buy cell-based meat in the US will be here soon.

Shiok Meats Closes Bridge Funding Round, Plans R&D Facility for Cultivated Seafood

Cultured seafood company Shiok Meats has raised an undisclosed amount of investment in a bridge funding round from Woowa Brothers Asia Holdings, CJ CheilJedang Corporation, and Vietnamese-based seafood exporter Vinh Hoan Corporation. This brings Shiok Meats’ total funding to date to $30 million, according to a company press release. 

The round also included existing investors IRONGREY, Big Idea Ventures, Twynam Investments, Henry Soesanto, The Alexander Payne Living Trust, Beyond Impact Vegan Partners, Boom Capital Fund, Toyo Seikan Group Holdings, and Mindshift Capital.

While Shiok Meats did not disclose the exact amount of the bridge round, it likely clocked in around the $10 million mark, a figure based on publicly available information about the company’s financials.  

The new funds will go towards building an R&D production facility in Singapore, where the company is based. To date, Shiok Meats has developed cultivated shrimp and lobster, and aims to eventually produce those products at scale via its production facility.

Several other cultivated protein companies, including Future Meat, MeaTech 3D, and fellow cultured-seafood company Willdtype, have also announced production facilities over the last few months. BlueNalu, another seafood-focused company, announced a production facility back in 2020 that is slated to be operational towards the end of this year.

For its part, Shiok Meats says it plans to launch in Singapore by 2023 at the latest. The company received the prestigious Startup SG Tech Proof-of-Value grant, which helps companies fast-track development of their technologies/products and which could help Shiok Meats get to market faster.

In Singapore, at least, Shiok already has competition. San Francisco, California-based Eat Just nabbed the world’s first-ever regulatory approval to sell cultivated meat from Singapore and is currently selling its “chicken” at restaurants in the city-state.   

MeaTech Says It Will Develop Cultured Pork Products

Israel-based alt-protein company MeaTech 3D has begun research and development activities around cultivated pork, the company announced today. 

Initial activities will focus largely on developing porcine cell lines, which the company says could expand its number of potential addressable markets since pork is the most widely consumed meat in the world. The porcine cell lines will add to MeaTech’s existing cell ag efforts, including cell lines for beef and chicken.

In May of this year, the company announced plans for a pilot production facility that will first be used to increase the production of its cultured fat product and then go on to produce entire cuts of cultivated meat using the company’s 3D bioprinting technology. 

Cell lines are a crucial step in the process of making cultivated meat, since cells are the starting inputs for any eventual product. However, creating new cell lines is an expensive and time-consuming process, and researchers are still figuring out which types of cells are best suited for the kind of large-scale manufacturing most cultured meat companies are aspiring to eventually do.

Most of those companies so far have stuck to developing cultured beef or chicken products, not pork. Despite the latter being the world’s most most popular meat, a very small handful of companies is actually focused on that particular protein right now. Future Meat Technologies, also based in Israel, says its newly opened production facility is producing cultured pork. Dutch startup Meatable, New Age Meats, and Higher Steaks have also done pork prototypes during the last few years. 

MeaTech’s specific focus on cell line development will further set it apart from the masses as more companies announce plans to explore cultured pork products in the future.

Cell Ag Startup Mission Barns Raises $24M for its Cultivated Fat

Mission Barns, a cellular agriculture startup creating cultured fat, announced today that it has raised a $24 million Series A round of funding. Investors in the round include Lever VC, Gullspang Re:Food, Humboldt Fund, Green Monday Ventures, and Enfini Ventures. This brings the total amount of funding raised by Mission Barns to more than $28 million.

Mission Barns is focused on cultivating animal fat, just without the animal. The company’s technology starts with pork, poultry or beef cells and grows them using plant-based feedstock in a cultivator. The result, the company says, is an animal fat that brings the same mouthfeel and flavor of meat without animal slaughter, and does so in a more environmentally friendly way than conventional animal agriculture.

Mission Barns has developed its own meat as well as in collaboration with other meat and plant protein partners. The company says applications include bacon, breakfast patties, burgers, nuggets, and more. In August of last year, Mission Barns held curbside taste tests of its cell-based bacon outside restaurants in San Francisco and Oakland, California.

The alternative fat space has steadily been growing over the past year, with a number of startups developing their own technology. Here in the U.S., Motif Foodworks is developing its own plant-based fat. Hoxton Farms is working on cultivated fat in the U.K. And in Australia, Nourish Ingredients is using yeast fermentation to create plant-based fat.

In today’s press announcement, Mission Barns says that it will use the new funding to scale up its production and build a pilot production facility in the San Francisco Bay Area.

“Cell-Cultured” Is the Best Way to Describe Seafood Grown in a Lab, According to Key Industry Players

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has published comments from key players in the cell-based seafood space around what to actual label the stuff when it is finally cleared for sale to consumers (h/t Food Navigator). Consensus is building around “cell-cultured” as the most effective descriptor.

The original call for comments was sent out towards the end of 2020, and yesterday was the cutoff date for responses. Among those who weighed in on the discussion were BlueNalu, Finless Foods, and Memphis Meats, all companies currently developing cell-cultured seafood or meat products. 

The comments underscore the importance of choosing the right name for a food type that still strikes many average consumers as something out of science fiction. When plant-based meat arrived in grocery stores, the labeling battle was usually less about convincing consumers and more about doing battle with Big Meat over use of certain words. Cultured meat’s big challenge, for now, is trying to concisely but effectively explain the concept of “protein grown from animal cells in bioreactors” to consumers. 

Whatever label is settled on will have to convey several things at once to consumers. It will have to make clear that the product is safe, that it is real meat (aka not vegan), but that it is different from traditional animal-based protein in terms of how it is produced (e.g., cell cultured versus wild caught). Based on the comments submitted to the FDA, labels for seafood should also factor in food transparency, adherence to food industry protocols (e.g., allergen alerts), and should not disparage traditional meat products. 

Of the companies and individuals that responded to the FDA’s call for comments, the majority back the term “cell-cultured” when it comes to labeling seafood products. Meanwhile, the majority of commenters suggested a move away from terms like “clean meat” and lab-grown meat.”

Finless Foods’ nine-pager of a comment concluded that:  

At the highest level, Finless Foods advocates for and strongly supports an accurate, non- misleading, and descriptive label that clearly outlines what the cell-cultured products are, including species and product form, and how they are made, in a way that is uniform within the cell-cultured seafood category and consistent across categories. Therefore, we recommend that FDA adopt and memorialize the use of the term “cell-cultured” through the mechanism of a CPG or a letter to industry to provide appropriate guidance.

Citing a forthcoming Halman and Halman study, the Center for Science in the Public Interest said:

Based on the results of the two Hallman and Hallman studies, CSPI finds that both “cell-cultured” and “cell-based” would inform consumers of material facts and not be misleading, as well as portray the product in a neutral fashion. FDA should closely consider these options, and other peer-reviewed studies, in addition to conducting its own studies before making a final decision on its final label phrase. 

Memphis Meats said it supports “disclosure of the term ‘cell-cultured,’ in conjunction with the name of the conventionally-produced seafood product, in the statement of identity or name of cell-cultured seafood products.” The Berkeley, California-based company also noted in its comments that “Terms that specify the type of seafood product (e.g., ‘fillet,’ ‘steak’) should be permitted in the name or statement of identity of a cell-cultured seafood, as long as the term appropriately describes the particular product. “

The Vegetarian Resource Group brought up the issue of consumer education in its comments, stating that, “Use of a term such as ‘engineered using cultured seafood cells’ would help consumers understand that the product is based on seafood and that seafood cells are used in production. An educational program would need to be developed to inform consumers about the meaning of ‘cultured’ in this context.”

You can read the full comments here, many of which delve into some of the more subtle issues that existing in the labeling debate. For example, one anonymous commenter suggested “cell-built” seafood to factor in the use of 3D printing technology.

Interestingly, less than one year ago, Rutgers released a study that found “cell-based” to be the best descriptor for seafood products grown in a lab. “Cell-cultured” was a close runner up in that particular study, which suggests consensus has been building for some time around the evolution of “cell-cultured” seafood. 

 

Next Up for Cellular Agriculture: Scalability, Accessibility

At one point in the not-too-distant past, the idea of edible protein grown in a lab was the stuff of science fiction. But in what’s felt like a relatively short period of time (a few years), a greater number of companies, individuals, and investors have embraced the concept of cellular agriculture and, more and more, consider it a vital part of our future food system. 

Now the cell-based protein sector has a new set of challenges to tackle. As HigherSteaks’ Benjamina Bollag and BIOMILQ’s Michelle Egger discussed this week during The Spoon’s Food Tech Live event, we’re past the days of trying to convince folks that cellular agriculture is a viable reality. Now, companies have to prove the idea of growing protein in a lab can work at scale outside that lab to feed a growing world population, and do so while keeping environmental degradation minimal.

It’s not exactly a simple feat (understatement), and it certainly won’t happen next week (or next year). But during this week’s Food Tech Live, Bollag and Egger pinpointed not just the areas cellular agriculture needs to focus on in order to continue its evolution towards the mainstream, but also ideas for how to get there.

Among those are safety and quality assurance, equipment design, supply chain logistics, and cell culture density, to name just a few things. Egger added that one of the challenges cellular agriculture companies face right now is they are relying on technology from industries (biotech, Pharma) that have never had to scale to the level of mass commodity, which essentially the holy grail for cell ag companies.

Perhaps the biggest — and most important — challenge for these companies will be making cell-cultured protein, whether meat, breast milk, cheese, or eggs, into the hands of many. In other words, how do we make it more accessible to everyone?

It’s a question that isn’t possible to answer in the span of a 30-minute online chat, but definitely one the industry as a whole should consider now, though we’re years away from reaching that stage of mass commodity. Right now, a select few consumers can get their hands on alternative proteins grown in a lab. Those are usually the folks invited to exclusive taste-testings or the ones that can afford the rare fine dining experience for cultured protein.

“We can’t lose sight of the fact that if you truly want to reduce the amount of environmental degradation or provide more options to people or subsidize diets in a healthier manner, you have to get into the hands of everyone throughout this world,” said Egger.

That in turn will require more strategic thinking on the part of the industry in terms of how to reach a wider audience. It will also require collaboration amongst the difference companies currently innovating across the cellular agriculture sector.

Food Tech News: InnerPlant Launches Sensor Plants, $3.5 Million Grant for Cultivated Meat

I’m taking over the weekly Food Tech News post, and this week I bring you both plant-centric and meaty news. Money is being pumped into cultivated meat research, a plant-based burger company signed a partnership with a football team, and tomato plants can now tell you if they are feeling stressed. Oh, and the world’s smallest gum company raised $1.2 million in funding.

InnerPlant Launches “Living Sensor” Plants

InnerPlant, based in Davis, California, announced the launch of the InnerTomato™ this week. The tomato plants are fed a protein that amplifies the natural signals a plant releases to warn neighboring plants of different stressors. A farmer can use an iPhone, drone, or satellite to take a photo of the plants, and through augmented reality, will be able to see if the plant is a certain color. Different colors signal if the plant needs water, is stressed, or under attack from a certain disease or pest. This is InnerPlant’s first proprietary plant.

Photo from UC Davis’ Aggie Transcript

UC Davis Receives Funding For Cultivated Meat Research

UC Davis recently received a $3.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to research cultivated meat. One of the main goals of this five-year grant is to develop methods to amplify stem cells efficiently. Researchers aim to create methods that enable sustainably lab-grown meat to be an option for feeding a rapidly growing world population. This is the first major grant in the U.S. for cellular agriculture.

The World’s Smallest Gum Factory

Copenhagen-based True Gum just raised $1.2 million (USD) from a German VC Oyster Bay. True Gum makes plant-based gum that is free of petroleum ingredients (which are found in many gum brands), and instead uses a sustainably-sourced tree sap, called chicle, from South America as the main ingredient.

Planterra’s Brand, OZO, Partners With Denver Broncos

OZO, a brand of Colorado-based Planterra Foods, just signed a three-year partnership with the Denver Broncos. Planterra is a subsidiary of JBS Foods, the largest beef and pork processor in the world. OZO’s products include plant-based ground beef and burger patties made from pea protein, and are currently available in 12 U.S. states. As part of the partnership, OZO will be advertising at the Mile High Stadium and serving up its vegan burgers from its traveling food van.

The last time we brought up the Denver Broncos and the Mile High Stadium on The Spoon, it was to announce the installment of a beer-pouring robot at the stadium. Vegan stadium burgers and beer robots might be convincing enough to get me into a football stadium during a pandemic.

Tesco and Olio Team Up to Fight Food Waste

And in some non-meaty but still-sustainable news, Tesco and food-sharing app Olio announced this week they have partnered to fight food waste. Olio volunteers (of which there are around 8,000) will pick up surplus food at Tesco stores then upload it to the Olio app. Food is then distributed for free to households in need and community groups looking to help.

Tesco is launching this food-drive-like initiative across all 2,700 of its U.K. stores. The company said it was able to redirect 36 tons of food — which would have otherwise gone to waste — through an earlier trial of the program.  

New Age Meats, the First Company to Debut Cell-based Pork Sausage, Raises $2.7M

Yesterday New Age Meats, a cellular agriculture developing cultured meat, announced it had closed $2.7 million in seed funding. The round was led by ff Venture Capital and other investors include Agronomics Ltd, Sand Hill Angels, Supernode Ventures, Hemisphere Ventures, Kairos Ventures and SOSV, which previously invested in the company during New Age Meats’ time at the IndieBio accelerator program.

For now, the Berkeley-California-based company is focusing on cell-based pork. They’ve already made significant strides — New Age Meats did the first ever taste test of cell-based pork back in 2018 to positive reviews. They hope to bring a cultured meat product — probably pork — to market within the next couple of years.

According to CEO Brian Spears, who I spoke to earlier that year, their startup’s edge comes from harnessing automation and data science to optimize bioreactors — in short, to grow more meat more quickly. Prior to founding New Age Meats Spears, who has a background in engineering had started a research automation company. He claims that by harnessing automation they can dramatically speed up not only research for cultured meat, but can also press fast-forward on manufacturing. 

Not surprisingly, according to a press release New Age Meats will channel its seed round into investments in automation equipment and growing its team.

Over the past few months there’s been a lot of money funneled into cultured meat and seafood startups: Wild Type, Future Meat, Shiok Meats, and Meatable have all announced new funds over the past six months. And just today Mosa Meats, the company which debuted the first ever cultured hamburger back in 2013, announced it had formed new strategic partnerships to accelerate its launch date.

With so much new capital, it seems like the race to bring cell-based meat to market is heating up (despite the fact that there are still significant regulatory hurdles). TBD if New Age Meats’ focus on automation can help it win that race, but this new funding certainly won’t hurt.

Cellular Aquaculture Startup BlueNalu Unveils Cell-Based Yellowtail in Culinary Demo

Today BlueNalu, a San Diego-based startup developing seafood from fish cells through a process called cellular aquaculture, announced that it has done a culinary demo of its cultured yellowtail amberjack.

In a press release the company called the demo a “milestone” to support its plans to introduce cell-based seafood to market within the next two years. BlueNalu CEO Lou Cooperhouse noted that the company has also internally tested mahi mahi and red snapper.

Several other companies have already done taste tests of their cell-based seafood. Wild Type organized a dinner featuring its cultured salmon earlier this year. In Asia, Shiok Meats debuted dumplings containing cultured shrimp in March, and just last month Avant Meat unveiled its cell-based fish maw (edible swim bladders of fish) at the Future Food Summit in Hong Kong.

However, it seems that BlueNalu’s fish is unique in that it acts just like traditional fish in all cooking techniques, whether it’s served seared or steamed or raw. As Cooperhouse noted in the release, “we don’t believe that any other company worldwide has been able to demonstrate this level of product performance in a whole-muscle seafood product thus far.” In the tasting, the so-called “medallions” of yellowtail were prepared cooked in tacos and seafood bisque, as well as acid cured in a poké dish. Wild Type’s salmon, by contrast, can’t be cooked to high temperatures or else it falls apart.

Photo: BlueNalu

BlueNalu’s next step is to scale, scale, scale. They’ll have to move pretty quickly to meet their incredibly ambitious plans that include a goal to break ground on a facility which will produce 18 million pounds of cell-based seafood within the next five years.

While a successful culinary demo doesn’t necessarily mean that BlueNalu will be able to achieve that goal in that timeline, it’s certainly a promising first step.

Japanese Startup Integriculture Will Sell Cultured Foie Gras by 2021, and Teach You To Make It at Home

At SKS Japan this week, lots of speakers have been predicting what the future of food might look like: it might be cooked by robotic articulating arms, it might be carbon neutral, or it might be personalized to individuals’ specific tastes.

But the most futuristic vision of all might have come from Yuki Hanyu, CEO and founder of DIY cultured meat community Shojinmeat. He sketched out a time in which we’re all living on Mars, growing steak in bioreactors in much the same way we brew beer right now.

That reality is still a long way off. However, right now Hanyu is still working on quite a few projects pushing us towards a future in which everyone — yes, even you — can grow their own meat, and cultured meat is available in your corner supermarket.

Shojinmeat was the original enterprise, but in 2015 Hanyu spun out Integriculture, a startup creating full-stack cellular agriculture solutions. After his session at SKS Japan, Hanyu described his company’s projected timeline to me:

2019
By the end of this year Integriculture will start selling Space Salt, a dried version of cell culture media. For those who don’t nerd out on cellular agriculture, media is the liquid “food” that allows animal cells to rapidly proliferate to form meat. Space Salt is Integriculture’s (secret) proprietary blend of salt and food safe amino acids, which, when mixed with water, forms a DIY cell culture media. Hanyu wants to sell it to home enthusiasts who can use it to grow their own meat using Shojinmeat guide.

2020
While its focus is cultured meat, in 2020 Integriculture is also planning to sell its media for use in cosmetic applications, specifically as an anti-aging skincare product.

2021
In 2021, Integriculture will launch its first cell-based meat product: foie gras. Hanyu said that they decided to tackle foie gras as its first product because of its creamy texture, which means that they don’t have to emulate the texture and chew of meat. Since foie gras is already quite expensive, starting with that product will also presumably give consumers less of a sticker shock when they see its high price. Accordingly they plan to launch first in high-end restaurants in Japan.

“We’re not aiming for massive revenue at first,” Hanyu told me during SKS Japan. Instead, he’s expecting that the foie gras launch will be more of a proof of concept to show that cell-based meat is feasible and delicious. He also wants it to help establish regulatory guidelines for cultured animal products in Japan.

Which brings us back to the Space Salt. Presumably, when Integriculture starts selling its cell-based foie gras, Japanese food regulatory bodies will ask the company what’s in it in order to approve it for public consumption. At that time Hanyu and his team plan to show that the only two inputs are duck liver cells and Space Salt (plus water), the latter of which contains ingredients that are already sold on the market. He’s hoping that if they prove that duck liver and Space Salt are both already available for purchase, then by the transitive property their cell-based foie gras shouldn’t pose a problem.

If the 2021 restaurant launch goes as planned, Integriculture will start selling foie gras in supermarkets in 2023.

Photo: Integriculture

An ambitious timeline, to be sure — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The JST (Japan Science and Technology) Agency, part of the Japanese government, is investing part of its $20 million funding in Integriculture’s research for large-scale cell-based meat. The company is also working with JAXA (the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency) on its Space Food X program, which is developing closed-loop food solutions for space travelers.

That’s a lot of balls to juggle for the startup, especially one with only 13 employees and ¥300 million (USD 2.7 million) in funding. There’s also relatively little local support: despite the fact that cultured meat will likely debut in Asia, Japan is still quite light on cellular agriculture startups.

Interestingly, there’s at least one other company openly working in the cell-based meat space — and it’s a big one. Nissin Foods, the instant ramen giant, is partnering with the University of Tokyo to develop their own small cultured meat cubes to include in their freeze-dried ramen packs.

However, as they’re a large company which would require billions of tiny cell-based meat cubes — and they need to make them cheaply to keep down the cost of their product — Hanyu said that they’re likely 10 years away from actually incorporating cultured pork or chicken into the ramen packs.

Maybe then highbrow consumers will be able to have instant noodles with lab-grown foie gras.

Some Say Lab-Grown Insects Are the Food of the Future. But Will People Eat Them?

Over half of U.S. consumers say that they would not eat food made with cricket flour. Only a third of diners in the U.S. and U.K. would take a taste of cell-based meat (that is, meat grown in a lab). So why has there suddenly been so much buzz about how the future of food is lab-grown insects? And is it, actually?

The driving force is a piece in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems by researchers from Tufts University. It suggests that cultured insects (that is, bug cells grown in a lab) are a sustainable source of protein we should be paying more attention to.

According to the paper, invertebrate cell cultures require fewer resources and are more adaptable than mammalian or avian cultures. They can also grow with serum-free media, which makes them significantly cheaper to produce.

This February a new study raised questions about whether cell-based meat was actually better for the environment than traditional animal agriculture. Unlike most cultured meats, however, cultured insect cells require fewer resources (like cooling and electricity), so it’s significantly more sustainable.

Plenty of people have advocated insects as an environmentally friendly protein source, even before cellular agriculture came on the scene. Insects require significantly less land and water than cattle and emit far fewer greenhouses gases, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). They produce quickly, have a variety of flavor profiles, also boast an enviable nutritional profile.

But there’s one big problem: the “ick” factor. While roughly 2 billion people around the world consume insects regularly, many Westerners are still grossed out by the thought of eating bugs. A few startups like Chirp’s (which makes cricket chips and protein powder) and Exo (which makes cricket protein bars) have had success selling insect-laden CPG products and ants and water bugs grace menus at Michelin-starred restaurants, but they’re still an anomaly. Edible insect companies are even having a tough time finding employees willing to work to harvest the creepy crawlies.

That’s where the lab aspect could have a difference. Not in the cost of growing insect protein — it’s quite cheap to produce them outside the lab — but in perception. Sure, not everyone wants to eat a full-on cricket complete with wings and legs (though Seattle Mariner’s fans do!). But they’re probably more willing to eat insect protein sourced from a lab. All the more so when they learn about insects’ health benefits: high levels of protein, omega-3 fatty acids, fiber, and minerals.

That’s not to say people will necessarily want to bite into a lab-grown bug burger anytime soon. (Even if they did, we’re still a few years from even being able to make one.) Instead, I envision a future where cell-based insect protein could act as a partial meat replacement in processed foods like sausages or nuggets — similar to what Better Meat Co. is doing, only with bugs instead of wheat protein. Cultured insect protein could also combine with plant-based meat to make it more realistic in texture, flavor, and nutrition profile.

No matter what form its in, it’ll take a while for Westerners to accept insects as an acceptable source of protein — if they accept it at all. But the recent wave of interest in cultured meat makes me hopeful that insects could be getting their heydey. Perhaps, as the Frontiers article notes, this is “an opportune moment to revisit insect cells as a nutrition source.” Just as a supplement instead of a stand-alone food product.

If Plant-Based Meat Tastes This Good, Do We Even Need to Make Meat in a Lab?

There’s never been a better time to be a vegetarian. Or a flexitarian, for that matter.

Gone are the days when the only veggie option at a barbecue was a dry disc of a bean burger. Companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have harnessed food science and culinary technology to essentially reverse engineer meat; taking the textures and flavors we crave and figuring out how to make them out of plants (and some genetically engineered yeast), skipping the animal entirely.

So far, they’ve done a pretty good job. When we tried Impossible’s new Recipe 2.0 at CES this January — where it won the Best of the Best award — we were blown away by how closely it replicated beef. It was almost uncanny. In the months leading up to its wildly successful IPO Beyond Meat also unveiled a tasty new recipe which has been roping in flexitarians at Carl’s Jr. and Del Taco.

We’re not the only ones impressed by these companies’ meat-like vegan offerings. Consumers have been flocking to plant-based meat as of late. Spurred by increased demand, meat alternatives have become more widely accessible (geographically and price-wise) as it heads onto menus of nationwide fast-food chains like Burger King.

Plant-based meat may be doing a good job at imitating the real thing, but some companies are trying to actually make the real thing by growing animal cells in a lab.

No cell-based meat product has hit the market yet, though companies are already doing taste tests of everything from cell-based sausages to shrimp. Food tech company JUST is claiming it’ll make the first public sale of cell-based meat by the end of this year, but most other companies are estimating 2020/2021 as the launch date.

It sounds great on the surface: real meat, minus the environmental and ethical costs! But cultured meat is actually quite polarizing. First of all, it’s expensive — as of now, it costs around $50 to make a single burger. There are also questions around whether or not it’s actually better for the environment than traditional animal agriculture, especially considering many companies rely on controversial (and non-vegan) fetal bovine serum. And the FDA and USDA haven’t exactly nailed down how they’re going to regulate this new foodstuff.

Lately I’ve been wondering: If plant-based meat tastes so good people can’t even tell it’s vegan, do we even need cell-based meat? After all — it’s expensive, polarizing, and it’s unclear when (or where) we’ll be able to taste it. So why bother?

JUST’s nuggets made with cell-based chicken meat.

I actually think there are a couple reasons that cell-based meat is still a relevant endeavor. First: taste. Sure, companies may make pretty good imitations of chicken nuggets or beef burgers out of plant proteins. But it’ll be a much bigger lift to make a vegan version of a white meat chicken breast, a T-bone steak, or fatty bacon that will fool the average carnivore.

There, cell-based meat has more of a chance. As of now it certainly has textural and taste hurdles of its own. However, at least it’s working with the same raw material that goes into an animal product (muscle cells, fat cells, etc). I’m optimistic that scientists will eventually crack the code — finding an affordable animal-free media, figuring out the right scaffolding to create texture — and be able to make cell-based meats that are pretty darn indistinguishable from the real thing.

The second reason that cell-based might have the upper hand over plant-based meat is psychological. Some people are just very stubborn carnivores (hi there, my entire Southern family!). Even if they couldn’t tell the difference between a plant-based and a cell-based burger in a blind taste test, I’m guessing that, given the choice, the majority of them would go for the latter — because at least it’s real meat.

In fact, a recent consumer study from Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems found that 24 percent of consumers were not at all likely to purchase cultured meat, while 26 percent said the same for plant-based meat. Going forward, cell-based meat companies will have to figure out effective branding strategies to win over those that are hesitant and convince them that meat grown in a lab is the same — if not better — than what comes from a pasture.

In the end, it’s not an either-or. Our protein future will likely feature both plant-based and cell-based meat. Heck, there might even be some insects thrown in there. Consumers will choose different options based off of dietary preferences, budgets, marketing, etc.

So while plant-based meat does indeed rule for now, the alternative protein landscape will likely change in the next decade or so when cultured meat enters the scene. Until then, dig into your Impossible Whopper and let its (lab-made) blood run down your chin with abandon.

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