Cultured meat needs to focus on four main areas – scale, cost, regulatory and consumer acceptance – before it can succeed commercially, KC Carswall, Ph.D,, Vice President, Memphis Meats, said.
“Those first commercial moments will invite public scrutiny and questions on a global scale and as an industry, we all need to be ready to answer them. Questions like: Is it safe? Is it meat? How much does it cost? How much can you make? Is it delicious?” Carswall explained during the keynote presentation on October 19 at the Cultured Meat Symposium.
“I’ll admit it can seem a bit daunting to try to tackle all of these things at once, but we can’t see getting to commercialization without them.”
Scalable processes
The amount of food needed to feed the global population each day is massive. The cultured meat industry will need to aim large by investigating new cell culture methods and research supply chains that can adapt and grow before it can enter the market.
“Each of us in the industry might be planning different means of making our products and that’s part of the exciting landscape of all that’s happening in this field. But whatever way you’re going to do it, our production platforms must be both technically robust, meaning consistent product run after run and they must demonstrate massively scalable principles to be relevant for food production,” said Carswall.
Cost
Currently, it is very expensive to produce cultured meat products. This segment of the meat alternative market must find ways to bring down the costs of raw materials, capital and labor to be economically viable.
Carswall suggested that the industry investigate the use of automation as a way to bring down labor costs, a move that is also occurring in the meat and poultry industry.
“In order to convince our customers and investors that we’re a viable industry, we have to be able to show a clear path to profit at scale. Our economics have to make sense for the return on capital that’s needed for this industry,” she said.
Regulatory
The cultured meat industry should work with regulatory agencies to ensure that any product sold is safe to consume. Currently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for the oversight of the growth and collection of cultured cells, while the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) oversees the processing of any cells into meat and the labeling of any products
“They, of course, understand that regulation of our products is a partnership where we work together as we characterize and define our products, our processes and our facilities and we understand that we all benefit from work that the FDA and USDA do to ensure a safe food supply in this country and the value that has to our customers.” Carswall said.
Consumer acceptance
Education is going to play a huge role in attracting consumers to any new product, so it’s important that cell-based meat companies have outreach programs.
“The last step is to make sure that consumers understand and are excited about what we’re doing. It doesn’t matter how efficient and cost effective our technology is or how smoothly the regulatory path functions if nobody’s interested in the products,” explained Carswall.
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