Analysis of current technology status for the industrialization of cultured meat

Abstract

Cultured meat is expected to become an important material for future food production; however, contrary to initial expectations, the full-scale industrialization of cultured meat is slow and the actual level and opened technology amount is very limited. This study reviews the publicly available technologies of cultured meat and suggests future developmental directions and research agenda. As a result of analyzing papers, patents, and press releases published over the past 10 years, it was found that cultured meat production technology is still at the prototype production level. This is because most papers published are about culture medium and scaffold development, culture conditions, and there is almost no research on finished cultured meat products. Worldwide, most of the filed patents are for producing cultured meat principles; most of them do not use food-grade materials and are not economically feasible for industrialization. Therefore, future research on the industrialization of cultured meat should focus on effective acquisition technologies for satellite cells; cell lineage and undifferentiated state maintenance technologies; the development of serum-free media and culture devices; the prevention of genetic modification, safety verification, and mass production. Furthermore, basic research on mechanisms and influencing factors related to cultured meat production is warranted.

Keywords:

• Cell culture media
• cultured meat industrialization
• cultured meat patents
• muscle satellite cell
• scaffold

Author contributions

Lee DY: Writing-original draft and writing-review & editing. Park J, Han D, Choi Y, Kim JS, Mariano Jr. E, Lee J, and Yun SH: Investigation and visualization. Lee SY, Park S, Bhang, SH: Writing-review & editing. Hur SJ: Conceptualization, writing-original draft, and writing-review & editing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was conducted with the support of Chung-Ang University. This work was supported by Korea Institute of Planning and Evaluation for Technology in Food, Agriculture and Forestry (IPET) through High Value-added Food Technology Development Program, funded by Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA) (321028-5, 322008-5).