5 Takeaways from Tufts Cellular Agriculture Innovation Day
Pioneers in cellular agriculture gathered in Boston last week to discuss the state of the industry — and what it will take to take cell-grown products to the next level.
Tufts University’s first Cellular Agriculture Innovation Day featured panel discussions with industry leaders, researchers, and other experts. The panelists showed how far the technology of raising meat and other products has come in the past decade, and shared their views on how that momentum will continue in the next few years.
Ten years ago, “you could count the number of people dedicated to agriculture by cell phone,” said Isha Datar, executive director of the nonprofit research organization New Harvest, in a panel discussion at the event.
“To see 10 years go by, and to see 150 companies emerge, so much private investment, so many people in the education space — to me, it’s like, ‘OK, the party’s on,'” Datar said.
All eyes on cell culture media
Cellular agriculture has many research and development hurdles to overcome in the coming years, said Mark Post, chief scientific officer at Mosa Meats, in a panel discussion.
In particular, the industry still needs to work “a lot” on the cost effectiveness – and in particular, resource efficiency – of its manufacturing processes, Post said.
The major cost of cell culture products today is the culture media: nutrients that support cell growth.
According to Andrew Stout, a PhD student specializing in cultured cell sources and culture media at Tufts University, the field of cell-based agriculture has seen success in reducing the cost of certain components of culture media, such as growth factors.
Those segments were the “low-hanging fruit” of cultural media, Stout said at the event.
Going forward, researchers in the field will likely talk about the “next-lowest hanging fruit,” such as amino acids and vitamins, he said.
Working together to solve important questions
Datar, executive director at New Harvest, predicts that industry players will increasingly find answers to their questions through collaboration.
Most of the news from the industry in recent years concerns individual companies and products – but in the next decade, we will hear more about how different companies and other players work together to “solve. [the] paradox,” said Datar.
In particular, companies are working together on the challenge of scaling up using shared resources, he said.
In 2021, we saw the announcement of one such center in Europe: the Cultured Food Innovation Hub organized by the Swiss flavor producer Givaudan and other partners. Companies have organized the Innovation Hub as a starting point to find shared resources, enabling more players to innovate in the field at lower costs.
Getting government funding
Bruce Friedrich, president and founder of the Good Food Institute, predicts that government funding will play an increasingly important role in helping the industry deal with cost and scale challenges.
In the past three years, governments around the world have already “gone from almost zero to hundreds of millions of dollars” in funding, Friedrich said.
Friedrich envisioned government funding for mobile agriculture that would reflect investments in renewable energy and electric vehicles.
In the US, there may be bipartisan support for spending to support the industry, he said – pointing to efforts by the Good Food Institute to communicate with Republican lawmakers about the potential employment and economic benefits of this spending.
Introducing stem cell products to the public
Speakers at the Tufts event also spoke about the need to continue to improve cell-based products before introducing them to consumers.
For Post, chief scientific officer at Mosa Meats, one step to improve product quality would be to improve the separation of muscle tissue and fat.
Academia can help improve the quality of cell-grown products by identifying which genetic factors can target cells that will produce delicious end products, according to Stout, a PhD student at Tufts University.
According to David Block, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of California, Davis, another task for academics will be to ensure that cell-cultured products are nutritionally equivalent to their conventional counterparts.
But the industry also has an “opportunity” to take more control over the nutritional quality and safety of its products than conventional agriculture, because cell-culture products are grown in highly regulated environments, Block said in a panel discussion at the event.
The progress of semi-industrialization
The industry has begun receiving its first stamps of approval, and is “close to receiving regulatory approval from multiple jurisdictions,” according to the Post.
In November, UPSIDE Foods became the first company to receive a “no question” letter from the FDA – meaning the agency determined that the company’s cell-farmed chicken is safe for consumers.
Eat Just, a San-Francisco startup, became the first company to receive regulatory approval for cell cultured meat when the Singapore Food Agency greenlit its cell cultured chicken in 2020.
With the legal approval of the works, and the factories that are starting to be built, “we are getting to that level.” [the industry] it becomes a kind of industry,” said Post.
But he added: “It will take a long time before that.” [cell-cultivated products] it will be a big part of the markets where we can ultimately have an impact on the environment, which is the root of all this.”
Uma Valeti, CEO of UPSIDE Foods, said it could take anywhere from 10 to 30 years before farmed meat “goes away.”
