Is Cultivated Meat For Real?—Asterisk

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses the current state and future prospects of cultivated meat, also known as "lab-grown meat" or "cultured meat". It explores the scientific and technological challenges, as well as the investment and scaling challenges, that the cultivated meat industry is facing in its efforts to bring the product to market.

🙋 Q&A

[01] The Prices of Input Materials

1. What are the three main inputs required for the manufacturing of cultivated meat?

• Starter cells, often stem cells of some type
• Nutrients that the cells need to duplicate and turn into the relevant tissue types, including sugars, fats, minerals, and amino acids
• Signaling molecules that tell the cells how to behave, called "growth factors"

2. According to the article, which input material is likely to be a long-term bottleneck for the price of cultivated meat? Amino acids, as they are the fundamental building blocks of the proteins in meat and cells cannot be engineered to need less of them. Absent new breakthroughs, the price floors on bulk amino acids could be a fundamental bottleneck on the price of cultivated meat.

3. How does the article suggest that the challenge of growth factors (GFs) as a cost driver can be addressed? The article suggests that GFs are less of a long-term bottleneck, as GF production via precision fermentation is easily scalable, and the supporting industries that produce the relevant GFs at massive scales don't exist yet but should be able to grow at least as quickly as cultivated meat itself. Companies can also modify the starter cells to require lower concentrations of GFs or to forgo them entirely.

[02] Scaling Up the Manufacturing Process

1. What are the two main stages of the manufacturing process for cultivated meat? The two main stages are:

• Proliferation: Where the starter cells continually divide to create more cells until there's a sufficient quantity of "cell slurry" - a mass of cells mixed in a liquid.
• Differentiation: Where cells in the slurry transform into the desired tissue type, like muscle or fat.

2. What are some of the key challenges in scaling up the manufacturing process?

• Scaling up to larger bioreactor sizes is costly and challenging, as each process characteristic needs to be reevaluated and the number of possible problems increases with bioreactor size.
• Maintaining sterility at larger scales becomes more difficult, as the risk of contamination from external microbes increases with a longer, more complex process and more materials.

[03] Massive Capital Investments

1. What is the "virtuous cycle of capital deployment" described in the article? The virtuous cycle is where:

• Technology firms solicit funding from investors and promise certain milestones
• Whether investors invest depends on how well firms have performed in the past, the financial situation of the investors, and the overall investment environment
• If firms hit their promised milestones, it can catalyze a new flurry of investments, continuing the cycle

2. How does the article suggest this virtuous cycle can break down for cultivated meat? The cycle can break if technology firms don't hit their promised milestones, causing investors to lose faith. Or if there's an economic downturn that causes investors to tighten their belts and reduce speculative investments.

3. What are some of the key milestones the cultivated meat industry needs to reach to unlock further capital investment?

• Develop scalable processes and demonstrate them in pilot plants
• Obtain regulatory approval for the safety of their products
• Scale up production capacity and further reduce costs, while demonstrating consumer demand

[04] Potential Pathways to Overcome Challenges

1. What are some alternative bioreactor systems the article suggests could offer better trade-offs for cultivated meat production compared to stirred tank systems? The article mentions "adherent" proliferation processes, where cells are secured onto a substrate and liquid is circulated through, which can achieve much higher cell densities.

2. How does the article suggest that increasing the size of individual cells could be a pathway to scalability for cultivated meat? The article notes that even after the number of cells in a batch is set in the proliferation phase, more mass can be added during the differentiation phase, particularly for fat cells which can vary greatly in volume.

3. What are some ways the article suggests genetic engineering could help address the challenges of cultivated meat production? Genetic engineering could be used to make cells more efficient and suitable for large-scale cell culture, as evidenced by UPSIDE Foods' recent FDA approval which included the use of genetic engineering.

4. How does the article propose that technologies mimicking natural animal digestion could help address the amino acid cost bottleneck? The article suggests using soy hydrolysates, where soy is broken down chemically to create a composite amino acid ingredient, as a potentially promising solution to lower the cost of amino acids.

[05] Comparison to the Development of Solar Energy

1. What parallels does the article draw between the development of solar energy and the potential path forward for cultivated meat? The article compares cultivated meat to solar energy, noting that both involve a completely novel industrial process that is capital intensive, low margin, high volume, and in a commoditized market. It points to solar's decades-long journey, with periods of pessimism and missed milestones, as a model for how cultivated meat may progress.

2. How does the article suggest government support could play a role in the success of cultivated meat, similar to its role in the development of solar energy? The article argues that just as governments have invested heavily in the development of solar energy, similar government support and investment could be crucial for the long-term success of cultivated meat, if society decides it is a worthwhile endeavor.

3. What does the article suggest about the importance of maintaining a diversified portfolio of bets across different alternative protein approaches, rather than relying on a single "silver bullet"? The article states that given the uncertainty about how the future will play out, we need to maintain a diversified portfolio of bets across cultivated, plant-based, and traditional advocacy and social change approaches to improving animal welfare, rather than pinning hopes on any one solution.