Science of slaughter-free: Industry reacts to Nestlé’s deep dive into cultured meat

14 Jul 2021 --- As the world’s biggest food and drink company, Nestlé is making its way into the cultured meat arena – sparking reaction from key players in this burgeoning industry. The Swiss giant is now evaluating strategies to produce cultured meat and its derived ingredients with a host of external partners and start-ups.

Speaking to FoodIngredientsFirst about these latest developments are CEOs from Blue Nalu and Finless Foods, two leading players in the cell-based seafood arena. Cellular agriculture is still in its grassroots and new interest from a multinational like Nestlé signals bigger strides for the fledgling industry. 

“It is very exciting to hear of Nestle’s interest in this category, as they are the world’s largest food and beverage company,” says Lou Cooperhouse, president and CEO of BlueNalu. “Cell-cultured seafood, meat and poultry products can result in products that support human health, animal welfare and global food security and sustainability.”

“We have already seen considerable interest from a number of food companies, as well as diversified multinational conglomerates, in the cell-cultured protein industry over the past few years and I believe this interest will significantly escalate in years ahead.”

Cultured meat by Future Meat Technologies. (Credit: Future Meat Technologies)Michael Selden, CEO of Finless Foods adds: “It’s a good sign, I’m extremely pleased that Nestle is interested – this technology is inevitable and big players should get on board if they are interested in participating in and helping build a food supply that is more resilient, more profitable, and better for the planet.”

Coming closer to price parity
Reinhard Behringer, head of the Nestlé Institute of Material Sciences at Nestlé Research comments: “For many years we have been investing in our protein expertise and the development of proprietary technologies for plant-based meat alternatives, allowing us to continuously expand our wide range of tasty and nutritious products with a lower environmental impact.”

“To complement these efforts, we’re also exploring technologies that could lead to animal-friendly alternatives that are nutritious, sustainable, and close to meat in terms of taste, flavor, and texture. We are excited to understand their potential.”

Scientists at Nestlé Research in Lausanne are working with Future Meat Technologies, a cultured-meat start-up, to explore the potential of cultured-meat components that do not compromise on taste or sustainability.

Future Meat Technologies’ novel and cost-efficient proprietary technology can produce non-GMO cultured-meat components from animal cells, therefore reducing the need for land and resources to raise animals.

Cultivated meat may hit competitive cost and environmental benchmarks by 2030.Future Meat Technologies is the first company in the industry to break a price record, producing cultured chicken breasts for only US$3.90.

“As our technology progresses with scale, prices will continue to drop making cultured meat affordable worldwide,” states the company. “We have the power to rapidly scale non-GMO, sustainable, clean, cultured meat production by the year 2023.”

“Our cost-effective solutions drive us closer to price parity with traditional farmed meat, allowing us to secure a better future for coming generations.”

Recent analysis by Dutch research organization CE Delft has found that cultivated meat may hit competitive cost and environmental benchmarks by 2030. It further suggests that hybrid products combining plant-based meats with cultivated meat may offer a “compelling near-term opportunity” to further reduce costs and hit environmental targets, while more thoroughly biomimicking the meat-eating experience.

Cell-based in the supermarket
Cooperhouse at Blue Nalu anticipates that the cell-cultured market will rapidly evolve over the next five to 10 years. 

“The management consulting firm AT Kearny anticipates that cell-cultured meats will represent 35 percent market share and plant-based meats will represent 25 percent of the market share by 2040. This indicates that what we know today as conventional protein will become unconventional by 2040,” he shares.

“My personal forecast is that 2030 will be the decade in which numerous large-scale, cell-cultured factories will be built around the globe, resulting in compounded annual growth in this whole category,” he continues.

“Before then, you’ll see small-scale factories going up, and perhaps several hundred million pounds of volume in aggregate amongst all cell-cultured companies over the balance of this decade, which will only represent limited market share.”

Bioreactors at Future Meat Technologies. (Credit: Future Meat Technologies)But from 2030, Cooperhouse expects “extremely rapid growth” and the ability to supplement the global supply chain gap, as demand increases and conventional supply remains relatively flat. “We’re hopeful that cell-cultured seafood can really supplement the gap that’s upon us.”

Selden at Finless Foods adds: “I see cell-cultured meat sitting alongside animal-based meat and not needing its own aisle, similar to how farm-raised seafood doesn’t have its own aisle. Consumers will see this as simply another option and make the decisions themselves on a day-to-day basis rather than ideologically cohere to one or the other.”

Cultured surf and turf
Research into cell-based beef steak is where the cultivated meat movement first took root. Among notable developments covered on FoodIngredientsFirst, Aleph Farms – the company behind the world’s first cultivated beef steak, ribeye cuts and the first cultivated meat grown in space in 2019 – recently secured US$105 million in Series B funding. 

But Cooperhouse at Blue Nalu believes that one among the “greatest market opportunities” for cell-cultured protein products lies within the seafood category. The segment has already attracted mammoth investment over the last year, such as the US$12.6 million funding of cell-based shrimp by Shiok Meats in Singapore.

“Today, seafood market pricing is based on supply, making it variable and unpredictable, as well as considerably costly in areas like quality, distribution and logistics,” Cooperhouse remarks. “Currently, foodservice operators pay for the parts of the fish that are not typically eaten, like heads, tails, skin and bones.”

“With BlueNalu cell-cultured seafood, we anticipate that our products will have 100 percent yield, will likely originate from much shorter distances with a very favorable environmental and logistics footprint, and can command a price point equivalent to that of high-quality seafood on the market today.”

Selden comments: “There is still work to be done in dropping costs, but most of the work left involves a detailed and healthy conversation with regulators to make sure we’re meeting the safety standards needed to get-to-market.”

“Consumer adoption can be encouraged via a neutral labeling system that makes it clear how we’re different without scaring people off by making it sound too new. And also by starting to educate consumers now – to demystify the technology and build excitement around the potential and benefits of cell-cultured meat.”

By Benjamin Ferrer