TRANSCRIPT
There's been a growing trend towards meat substitutes in recent years, in a hope to minimise the climate damage caused by livestock production. Now, a bioengineering company in London is focused on manufacturing lab-cultivated fat, looking to make meat alternatives tastier.
The idea is to persuade more people to eat less traditionally farm-reared produce such as beef and chicken, and it seems the trick is in producing sustainable fats from stem cells.
Josh Hatfield is a product development chef at the Hoxton Farms laboratory in London. As a chef, he's concerned with making the products more appealing.
"In usual plant based formulations and products. You have a lot of palm oil and you have a lot of coconut oil, and it just doesn't have that flavour. You know, the thing I'm after as a chef is flavour like number one, and it's the thing that's missing from all of these products."
According to the United Nations' 2022 Food and Agriculture Organisation data, 14.5% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to livestock farming.
Hoxton Farms says cultivated fat is environmentally better, using less land, energy and less intensive production methods.
A January report on lab grown meat by analysts Research and Markets claimed the industry is projected to be worth a little under $3 billion dollars ($2 billion USD) by 2035.
However, there are could be obstacles in achieving this figure, including a high demand for plant based food and psychological barriers to eating lab based food.
There have also been high costs in producing the lab meat, but a report produced by global analysts McKinsey and Company in 2021 found companies have been able to reduce costs by 99 per cent since developing the first prototypes.
Ed Steele the co-founder of Hoxton Farms echoes this data.
"Initially, the cost of things like cultivated meat and products containing cultivated fat might be higher than a burger or sausage that you buy in the supermarket. But over time, that will change. What we make is made in a really efficient way. It has plenty of other benefits, but in terms of costs, specifically, we'll manage to reduce the cost down to below the cost of eating traditional meat."
But what about the industry's carbon footprint?
According to some scientists and food technology experts, while lab-produced meat might reduce farming emissions, it doesn't necessarily produce a smaller carbon footprint overall.
A study, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, from the University of California Davis makes this argument.
The report entitled 'Environmental Impacts of cultured meat: A cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment' says cultivated meat is likely to have greater environmental consequences based on current production methods.
It suggests one of the greatest obstacles is the highly refined growth medium in which the animal cells are grown. One of the report's authors, Dr Ned Spang, explains.
"What we need to understand here is that it’s not necessarily better for the environment, that it’s not a given that cultivated meat is better for the environment. It has to be designed into the production."
The success of alternative meat products remains to be seen.
US regulators in June approved the sale of chicken made from animal cells, allowing two California companies to offer lab-grown meat to consumers.
Italy however is considering a draft proposal which could result in a complete ban on so-called "synthetic food".
