In 2013, the world’s first lab-grown burger was served at a London news conference, and it cost $330,000 to create. Funding came from the co-founder of Google, Sergey Brin, but the burger’s creator, Professor Mark Post of Maastricht University, was quick to point out that this was only the start of making meat from animal cells.
Meat Grown in a Lab Instead of on a Farm
Lab-grown meat, also called cell-cultured or cultivated meat, is made by taking cells from a living animal without killing it. Usually, these starter cells receive a growth medium and grow inside a bioreactor, so they develop fat and muscle in a laboratory setting.
Growing meat in a lab eliminates the need to slaughter animals. It also reduces the amount of land, water and other resources that you need to produce meat. If done correctly, it can even lower carbon dioxide emissions. The other potential environmental benefits include reducing water pollution, biodiversity losses and deforestation.
Falling Prices
A price tag of $330,000 was enough to keep even the most curious foodies away from incorporating lab-grown meat into their meal plans in 2013. However, today’s cell-cultured market has changed.
Post, who co-founded Mosa Meat three years after unveiling the $330,000 burger, has continued to work on lab-grown meat, and he is not the only one. More than 70 companies around the world are trying to grow meat in a laboratory.
The price of cell-cultured meat has decreased from $330,000 to about €9 or $9.80 per burger. Prices are falling because the scale of production is improving, and materials cost less. Nevertheless, Post admits that lab-grown meat is still “much more expensive” than a burger you can purchase in a grocery store or a restaurant.
In addition to falling prices and more companies in the cultured meat space, more types of meat are being developed in the lab. This includes chicken, pork, duck, lamb, kangaroo and horse.
Feeding the World
While production costs are falling rapidly, there is still room for improvement. As companies and researchers across the globe are working to make lab-grown meat more affordable and accessible, they are running into problems to scale.
Growing enough cell-cultured meat to fill shelves in supermarkets requires inexpensive starter cells, growth medium and very large bioreactors. For now, growth medium and bioreactors are expensive and not available in the quantities necessary to feed the world.
We need affordable food now more than ever. The pandemic has increased world hunger to 811 million people being undernourished, according to the United Nations. Overall, 2.3 billion people struggled with adequate access to food in 2020 and were considered to have moderate or severe food insecurity. If we can make cell-cultured food less expensive and easier to access, it can help feed the entire world.