IWill cultivated meat meet the market’s expectations?
Words by Dr Mahya Tavan and Dr Paul Wood
f you look up “cultivated meat” on the usual online image search engines, you’ll likely be met with glossy images of eye fillets or a neat pile of premium-grade mince sitting in a petri dish. But the reality is far from this. What is being harvested in most labs today is not a perfectly marbled steak, but more likely a slurry of fibroblasts, a type of connective tissue which plays an important role in wound healing and is easier to grow than muscle cells. To transform this into anything remotely meat-like, it must undergo extensive processing, often blended with plant-based ingredients, before it begins to resemble the cuts of meat we are used to seeing on our plates. Since 2013, when the first cultivated meat burger was produced, the concept of “meat without the animal” has fascinated consumers.
Cultivated meat (CM), also known as cultured or lab-grown meat, refers to a type of meat produced through the culturing of animal cells in the laboratory. This is done by sampling animal cells, often fibroblasts, isolating individual cell lines and cultivating them in sterile media that
provides essential nutrients for cell growth and proliferation, and then growing them in large bioreactors. Cultured cells, which at this stage are a shapeless cell slurry, are then processed into commodity products that resemble sausages, burgers, and dumplings.
A major question is, who will be the consumers of CM, given that it is produced with animal cells? They will not be vegans or vegetarians, nor those who love a nice steak. The focus is on a segment of consumers labelled flexitarians, people who want to reduce meat consumption and are willing to try new products.
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The question is, will these consumers become regular purchasers of CM products? This group was also the major target for plant- based meat companies, and it did not go as well as expected.
In this paper we reflect on whether CM will ever meet market expectations.
Scaling manufacturing and costs
The main challenge for CM is that cell culture at any reasonable scale is an expensive technology.1 The cost will continue to decrease; however, the only successful business model
Singapore Good Meat December 2020 Chicken-hybrid 70/30
USA Good Meat July 2023 Chicken
USA Upside Foods June 2023 Chicken fillet
Israel Aleph Farms January 2024 Beef- thin-cut steak
Singapore Vow April 2024 Japanese quail
Hong Kong* Vow November 2024 Japanese quail
USA Mission Barns March 2025 Pork fat
Australia Vow June 2025 Japanese quail
* Special administrative regions of China
Table 1: Registered CM products for human consumption at the time of writing.
currently seems to be the one that targets upscale restaurants. The Australian-based company, Vow, has forged a different pathway and is working with chefs to create new food experiences using meat grown in the labs rather than on farms (Figure 1).
The biotechnology industry has been culturing mammalian cells at large scale (up to 25,000L) for many decades to produce vaccines and monoclonal antibodies. However, to utilise this technology to produce a food product requires the cost of manufacturing to come down over 1000-fold.1
It is easier to understand the magnitude of this challenge if we do a bottom-up calculation. Producing a kilogram of cultured meat requires around 20-40L of media, depending on the yield of cells and length of the culture period. Currently, media is very expensive but if we assume significant improvements, it could get to $1/L. At scale, (20,000L bioreactor) media will be approximately 20-30% of the total cost of production due to the high cost of the bioreactors, facilities and operations. Therefore, we end up with a manufacturing cost of over $100/ kg. If you now add distribution and retail margins, it’s a very expensive commodity meat substitute. Vow has recently scaled its manufacturing of Japanese Quail cells to 20,000L (Figure 2) and harvested over 544kg of product in one batch, with a monthly capacity of 1 tonne. However,
this is still very small compared to conventional meat production, at millions of tonnes of product. The estimate for a reasonably sized CM plant is over USD $450 million.2
Regulatory hurdles/labeling
Table 1 lists products that are, at the time of writing, licensed for human consumption. Currently, CM is banned in several countries, and gaining approval in other markets has proven challenging.
CM products are primarily hybrid products, blending cells with plantbased material to reduce costs and provide texture. The development of labelling regulations warrants close attention, especially following the launch of a CM product in Singapore that contained only 3% chicken cells.
It is likely that the major competition to CM products will be plant-based meat rather than conventional meat.
There are also several companies with licensed CM products for the pet market. Meatly (UK) with a 3% chicken product, Bene Meat technologies (Czech Republic) and BioCraft Pet Nutrition (Austria) using a mouse cell line.
Sustainability
Sustainability of CM is not well understood, as the technology has not yet been scaled. However, seven peer-reviewed studies have employed life cycle assessment (LCA) to quantify the environmental footprint of the CM.3 LCA is a common method of evaluating the
environmental impact of products or processes at various stages. In our recent review, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of published LCAs on CM spanning from 2011 to 2024. These studies commonly assess environmental indicators such as climate change, energy use, land use and water use, with some extending to broader aspects of environmental pollution and potential impacts on human health. Across the literature, energy demand consistently stands out as the dominant environmental burden, driving associated greenhouse gas emissions. A noticeable trend is the increase in estimated footprints over time, particularly in terms of energy use and emissions. More recent assessments have benefited from improved access to data from commercial or pilot-scale production and employed more robust modelling procedures, such as incorporating sensitivity analyses that account for key factors including the energy grid mix, final cell concentration and protein yield from inputs. However, the use of confidential data in some recent studies limits transparency and makes it difficult to independently verify the findings. These factors contribute to the wider variation in estimated impacts in later studies. Importantly, this variability mirrors the substantial differences seen in conventional meat production systems, where environmental outcomes also vary significantly depending on the production method used.
Nutrition and sensorial characteristics
CM aims to replicate the nutritional benefits of conventional meat, however there are still major gaps in our understanding of its actual nutrient profile. Essential nutrients such as vitamin B12 are unlikely to be present without deliberate addition, as CM is grown in sterile environments without the microbes responsible for producing them in animals. Similarly, current prototypes often lack fat content unless fat cells are specifically included or
Figure 1: Forged Gras Uramaki Sushi. Image credit: Vow.
supplemented with plant-based ingredients, which affects both health benefits and sensory qualities. While CM is assumed to offer high-quality protein, this has not been validated through established methods such as PDCAAS or DIAAS. In addition, the absence of postmortem biochemical changes, crucial in shaping the nutritional and textural qualities of traditional meat, further complicates the comparison. Overall, the nutritional equivalence of CM remains uncertain and will require more data.
The successful integration of CM into the market depends not only on overcoming production scaling challenges but also on consumer acceptance. Research on consumer attitudes toward CM has been conducted in various regions, including Germany, Italy, the UK, Spain, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic, revealing differing levels of acceptance across cultural contexts. Although many CM producers emphasise sustainability and animal welfare benefits in their marketing, similar to companies such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, the effectiveness of these messages in changing consumer behaviour remains uncertain. Studies have suggested that environmental claims alone might not be enough to significantly boost consumer adoption.
For instance, a study conducted in the United States found that providing information about the environmental impacts of farmraised beef, CM, and plant-based alternatives had only a slight influence on consumer preferences.4 Moreover, the terminology used to describe CM matters; consumers responded more positively to labels like “clean meat” or “animalfree meat” compared to terms like “cultured meat” or “lab-grown meat”.5
A survey in New Zealand further illustrated that demographic factors, such as gender and prior knowledge, significantly shaped individuals’ willingness to engage with CM, with more informed male consumers showing a higher likelihood of trying these products.6 This highlights the
Figure 2: Vow’s 20,000L bioreactor.
importance of improving consumer awareness and education to enhance the acceptability of CM.
It should be noted that current sensory research on CM remains limited, with many studies not involving actual CM products. Only a handful of studies have used real CM, and most have relied on analytical methods rather than human participants. As the field grows, there is considerable opportunity for further research into how consumer preferences evolve over time, and how these preferences influence purchasing decisions. This research will be crucial for shaping effective strategies to drive the widespread adoption of CM.
Conclusions and perspectives for the future
In Table 2, we have summarised our view on how CM products will compare with conventional meat by 2030. The technology works, you can grow cells at reasonable levels, but the costs will remain high. Therefore, the predictions that CM will replace a significant portion of the conventional meat market are extremely unlikely to be realised. Many people like to quote Moore’s Law, the concept that the cost of all technology decreases over time, but this law has never been applicable to biological systems. The only viable business model is the production of new food products that appeal to the high-end of the market. In this scenario, CM will not have a significant impact on improving the sustainability of our global food system.
References
1. Wood, P., Thorrez, L., Hocquette, J.-F., Troy, D. & Gagaoua, M. (2023). “Cellular agriculture”: current gaps between facts and claims regarding “cell-based meat”. Animal Frontiers 13, 68-74.
2. Sinke, P., Swartz, E., Sanctorum, H., Van Der Giesen, C. & Odegard, I. (2023). Ex-ante life cycle assessment of commercial-scale cultivated meat production in 2030. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 28, 234-254.
3. Tavan, M., Smith, N. W., Mcnabb, W. C. & Wood, P. (2025). Reassessing the sustainability promise of cultured meat: a critical review with new data perspectives. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 1-9.
4. Van Loo, E. J., Caputo, V. & Lusk, J. L. (2020). Consumer preferences for farm-raised meat, lab-grown meat, and plant-based meat alternatives: Does information or brand
NOW 2030
Cost of Products significantly higher at least 2-5 fold higher
Sustainability overall similar more sustainable
Nutritional equivalence unknown probably equivalent Food Safety equivalent equivalent
Scalability pilot scale up to 20,000L
Consumer acceptance few products available niche global market
Table 2: Scorecard for cultivated meat in comparison with conventional meat.
matter? Food Policy, 95, 101931.
5. Bryant, C. J. & Barnett, J. C. (2019). What’s in a name? Consumer perceptions of in vitro meat under different names. Appetite, 137, 104-113.
6. Giezenaar, C., Godfrey, A. J. R., Ogilvie, O. J., Coetzee, P., Weerawarna N.R.P., M., Foster, M. & Hort, J. (2023). Perceptions of Cultivated Meat in Millennial and Generation X Consumers Resident in Aotearoa New Zealand. Sustainability, 15, 4009.
Professor Wood AO led R&D teams from CSIRO, CSL and Pfizer (now Zoetis) and was Deputy-Director of the Vaccine Technology CRC. He brought several innovations to market, receiving recognition for inventing a new diagnostic test for Tuberculosis, including the CSIRO Medal, the Clunies Ross award and the Order of Australia. Paul was Chair of GALVmed and on the Board of Dairy Australia. He is on the Australian Academy Technology, Science and Engineering board and an Adjunct Professor at Monash University. In 2019 he received the International Distinguished Veterinary Immunologist Award, followed by the Eureka Prize for Outstanding Mentor of Young Researchers in 2022.
He is a mentor for various AgTech accelerators such as Sprout X and Rocket Seeder, as well as the CSIRO Protein Mission. Paul is the Chair of an Insect farming start-up Viridian Renewable Technology and on the scientific advisory group for the Global Methane Hub. He is a frequent commentator on the role of cellbased and precision fermentation technologies in food security.
Dr Mahya Tavan is a Research Officer with the Sustainable Nutrition Initiative (SNi) working on the development of a dietary optimisation tool for designing sustainable diets called The iOTA Model®. Prior to joining SNi, Dr Tavan held a research role at The University of Melbourne, Australia, where she carried out various research projects on sustainable food production, resource use efficiency and biofortification of fresh food. f