Cultivated chicken may have gained U.S. regulatory approval in 2023, but it failed to conquer its biggest challenges when it came to price parity and scale, according to annual list of worst in tech from the MIT Technology Review.
Most of the criticism was leveled at Upside Foods, which the list called “a bird in borrowed feathers.”
Instead of using giant bioreactors to produce whole textured chicken filets, the company was instead growing skin cells in small laboratory flasks which were then manually formed into the chicken pieces.
“In other words, Upside was using lots of labor, plastic, and energy to make hardly any meat,” the article said.
In addition, while chicken sells for $4.99 in the supermarket, cultivated chicken from Upside Foods is currently only available for $45 at a Michelin-starred restaurant in San Francisco.
Will these challenges ever be conquered?
The ability to scale up and achieve price parity have always been considered two of the biggest challenges facing the cultivated chicken industry.
Cultured meat is made from the cells of real animals, so the resulting product could taste like chicken, steak, pork or more. The process begins by isolating relevant stem cells that are found in muscle tissue.
Stem cells require something called a medium to grow and reproduce. Growth medium can cost up to $400 a liter. One kilogram of cultured meat can require up to 600 liters of growth medium, so costs can add up quickly. The inability to bring down costs could greatly limit the number of consumers who would purchase cultivated meat.
The entire process of creating cultivated meat takes place in bioreactors that function similarly to the equipment used in microbreweries. Using bioreactors, rather than standard cell culture, will be essential to producing cultivated meat at scale.
Upside Foods responds
For their part, Upside Foods took issue with several of MIT’s claims.
The company CEO, Uma Valeti, said this in a statement: “We are disappointed that this article fails to provide an accurate picture of the progress of cultivated meat and does not provide the right context for UPSIDE’s first product. UPSIDE has successfully and repeatedly demonstrated that we can scale our suspension technology to make delicious ground-textured and blended products. This platform is the basis for the commercial plant we are currently building, and will enable large scale production pending regulatory approval.”
“UPSIDE is proud to have established a high-watermark with our whole textured chicken product that’s being served today. We will continue to be pioneers addressing the challenge of sustainably feeding a growing global population while minimizing environmental impact, and remain steadfast in our goal of bringing delicious and safe cultivated meat to consumers. While we know there will be many challenges ahead, UPSIDE chooses to work with optimism, grit and dogged determination towards our vision for a better future, buoyed by the progress we’ve already made and the urgency of the work ahead,” the statement continued.
As regular readers know, I'm fascinated with the science of cultivated meat (and would totally try it!), but I've got to agree with MIT on this one. Cultivated meat still has a ways to go before it can be considered a success.
