Lab-grown meat: promises, pitfalls and unresolved challenges

Investments in the cultured meat industry are plummeting despite numerous companies applying to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to gain approval for the production of lab-grown meat. This decline stems from challenges that, at present, appear difficult to resolve.

The EU’s first-ever submission for cultivated beef

After the French start-up Gourmey applied for pre-market approval of its lab-grown foie gras and duck meat analogues to food safety authorities in the EU, Switzerland, the UK, Singapore, the US, and Aleph Farms submitted applications to Swiss and UK regulators to market its lab-grown beef, now Mosa Meat has followed suit. The Dutch company, known as a pioneer in cultured meat and for creating the world’s first lab-grown hamburger in 2013, has submitted its first Novel Foods application to the European Commission for its cultivated beef fat. This marks Mosa Meat’s first request for market authorisation in the European Union and the EU’s first-ever submission for cultivated beef.

Mosa Meat’s decision to start with cultivated fat reflects Europe’s unique regulatory framework. Unlike countries such as Singapore, where entire products are evaluated, the EFSA assesses each novel ingredient individually. However, the perceived risks and the unnaturalness surrounding these artificial products continue to make consumers sceptical about personal benefits.

Health and safety, a question of precaution

This is especially due to ongoing concerns about the potential health impacts of lab-grown products, with some countries opting to ban their sale or invoke the precautionary principle. In their first of four reports published in 2023, the FAO and WHO identified 53 potential health risks associated with cultured meat, some of which are significant. These include the potential proliferation of cancer cells and interference with the human endocrine system.

Indeed, numerous contradictions characterise its production, such as using hormones and antibiotics. The most comprehensive review on muscle cell cultures confirms that lab-grown meat production requires various anabolic factors for cell multiplication, such as growth hormones (GH) and insulin-like growth factor (IGF), as well as hypertrophic growth factors like androgens, particularly testosterone, which increase muscle mass in vitro.

These are used in bioreactors where the environment is significantly richer in anabolic factors than those naturally produced by a growing animal. Moreover, the behaviour of certain by-products in the human body remains unknown.

The use of growth factors and hormones in bioreactors to trigger and accelerate the abnormal cellular growth of muscle biomass, particularly the mechanism of cell proliferation where the differentiation of stem cells into myoblasts is inhibited, is a major concern among experts due to the heightened risk of uncontrolled mutations. There are genuine concerns that these bioactive molecules could interfere with human metabolism and potentially trigger the development of cancer.

In traditional animal farming, the use of hormones currently employed in lab-grown meat production has been banned for over 40 years in Europe, highlighting one of the many contradictions of this industry. Similarly, the use of antibiotics, reduced by more than half in livestock farming over the past decade, is instead prevalent in synthetic meat production, often combined with antifungals. These practices raise further questions about the safety and sustainability of lab-grown meat.

The environmental impact of lab-grown meat

When it comes to the environmental impact of lab-grown meat, existing life cycle assessments (LCAs) present a wide range of conclusions, spanning from highly sceptical to decidedly optimistic. While lab-grown meat purports to be a greener alternative to conventional meat, the industry remains in its infancy, with significant gaps in available information. This is because the promises of greater sustainability rely on two essential conditions: production on a large scale and the use of renewable energy. Conditions that, to date, no one has been able to meet.

On that note, recent studies have re-evaluated the actual environmental impact of this method of food production since the initial theoretical calculations in 2012. These findings suggest that the environmental footprint of lab-grown products could surpass that of traditional livestock farming, with impacts 10 to 50 times higher than natural meat, primarily due to the energy-intensive nature of the bioreactors used to cultivate the cells.

According to FAO estimates, global meat consumption is expected to increase by 14% between now and 2030. If this additional demand were to be met solely through the production of lab-grown meat, effectively halting traditional meat production, it would require the construction of nearly 150,000 bioreactors. In the best-case scenario, the environmental impact of this would be more than double that of meeting the demand through conventional livestock farming.

According to a new study, using crops for lab-grown meat feedstock does not significantly improve land use efficiency compared to conventional meat production, especially when factoring in crop rotation and energy requirements. Integrating solar energy does not substantially reduce land use for lab-grown meat production, further complicating climate change mitigation efforts.

Precision fermentation can produce cell media feedstock, however, scaling up precision fermentation faces major challenges, including insufficient global fermentation capacity and high production costs. The purity and refinement of amino acids for bioreactor use and the water-intensive nature of fermentation processes add further complications to achieving sustainable lab-grown meat production.

Other challenges hindering lab-grown meat

Another significant challenge is replicating the texture and flavour of traditional meat, as current lab-grown meat production methods result in muscle fibres that fail to mimic the complex structure found in conventional cuts of meat. Furthermore, assessing the nutritional quality of lab-grown meat, particularly its micronutrient composition and overall health implications, remains critical for further research and technological development.

Beware of the socio-economic effects of lab-grown products

And what about the potential negative socio-economic effects of feeding humanity with lab-grown, artificial foods rather than those naturally sourced from the land, severing the connection between people and livestock farming, agriculture or fishing? This could dehumanise one of the foundational processes of civilisation, slighting traditions and cultural heritage.

The devastating repercussions of this shift could be especially profound in the world’s poorest regions,  as it could consolidate food power in the hands of a few already wealthy elites. It would also undermine the progress of agrotechnology, which over the past 70 years has proven capable of feeding a population that has grown by over 5 billion people, thus taking away the responsibility of nourishing the world sustainably.