Accelerating an emerging industry
As the world population soars, so is the demand for animal protein. But as climate change threatens to reduce the amount of land and water available for farming, we need to get smarter about how we produce food. Cultured meat, also referred to as clean, cultivated or cell-based meat, could be the answer. By producing meat and seafood in a bioreactor instead of a farm, consumers could choose an alternative to conventional meat that has the potential to be healthier, ethical and better for our planet:
Supports better health
- No antibiotics use
- Free of pathogens and parasites
- Allows usage of healthy additives, such as vitamins
Ethically produced
- No need for animal slaughter
Environmentally friendly
- Less greenhouse emissions
- Less land and water usage
Meeting critical technology challenges
Many startups are already working towards making commercialization of cultured meat a reality. However, the field is still in its nascency and scaling up the production process and reducing cost remain as key challenges. As a leading supplier to the biopharma industry and through our expertise in areas such as cell culture media and bioprocessing technologies, we aim to accelerate the emerging industry of cell-based meat and become a technology enabler, from R&D to the efficient scale-up of production.
By partnering with companies who are looking to commercialize cultured meat, we aim to offer our knowledge and manufacturing expertise to help propel them to overcome critical technological challenges.
Examples of these technology challenges include:
- Formulations for cost-effective cell culture media that is free of any animal-derived material (such as fetal bovine serum) Learn more about how we are tackling this challenge here.
- Bioreactors, bioprocess design and automation platforms that enable growth and differentiation of multiple cell types simultaneously
- Biodegradable or edible scalable scaffolds to support cell adherence, vascularization and media perfusion
While working on technological solutions, we recognize that cultured meat and the idea of making it a regular part of our diets raise questions that extend beyond technical challenges. Check out this comprehensive trend study on cultured meat and its impact on society, the food industry and the future of meat consumption.
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Project Spotlight: Optimizing cell culture media
To produce cultured meat at scale, cell culture media needs to be high-performing, suitable for animal cells, free of animal-derived materials and cost-efficient. We are tackling exactly this challenge. How?
Future Food & Cultured Meat Podcast
Lavanya Anandan, former head of our Cultured Meat Innovation Field, talks about her love for cellular agriculture, how we accelerate the field, and why alternative proteins will revolutionize the way we eat.
Tune in for our “Future Talk" Podcast
How can virtual experiments accelerate cultured meat? Dario Kolenko, Head of New Business Development & Partnership Alliance, and Simon Kahan from the Cultivated Meat Modeling Consortium explored this topic!
How Cultured Meat is produced
This simplified workflow summarizes the key production steps for cultured meat production: A small biopsy of skeletal muscle is taken from a living animal. From this, stem cells are isolated and proliferated in a bioreactor with cell culture media. The cells are then differentiated into several cell types including muscle and fat cells. This biomass is then processed to form the edible final product.
CULTURED MEAT IN THE NEWS
- Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany collaborates with universities on Bioreactor Designs
- Vegconomist: Interview with Thomas Herget, Head of the Silicon Valley Innovation Hub
- Word Economic Forum: How soon will we be eating lab-grown meat?
- New Scientist: Accelerating the Cultured Meat revolution
- The Good Food Institute: Cultivated Meat 2020 State of the Industry Report
- 2021 CE Delft Studies: Major environmental benefits of cultured meat
The New Food Revolution – Cultured Meat as a game changer
Is the world ready for cultured meat as a new source of food?
Watch this Innovator´s Club featuring Aryé Elfenbein from Wildtype, Paul Shapiro from The Better Meat Co, as well as Heather Ahlborn and Timothy Olsen from Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.
Check out this story in our Science Space and find out more about cultured meat and how this novel field could help tackling the scarcity of resources.
learn morePartner with us
Are you interested in collaborating or partnering with us to jointly drive the scale-up of cultured meat?
As we continue support customers who are working in the cultured meat and protein industry, we want to be in touch with you and better understand your interests.