Plant proteins as the functional building block of edible microcarriers for cell-based meat culture application

Recent advances in scaffolding biomaterials for cultivated meat

The emergence of cultivated meat provides a sustainable and ethical alternative to traditional animal agriculture, highlighting its increasing importance in the food industry. Biomaterial scaffolds are critical components in cultivated meat production for enabling cell adhesion, proliferation, differentiation, and orientation. While there's extensive research on scaffolding biomaterials, applying them to cultivated meat production poses distinct challenges, with each material offering its own set of advantages and disadvantages. This review summarizes the most recent scaffolding biomaterials used in the last five years for cell-cultured meat, detailing their respective advantages and disadvantages. We suggest future research directions and provide recommendations for scaffolds that support scalable, cost-effective, and safe high-quality meat production. Additionally, we highlight commercial challenges cultivated meat faces, encompassing bioreactor design, cell culture mediums, and regulatory and food safety issues. In summary, this review provides a comprehensive guide and valuable insights for researchers and companies in the field of cultivated meat production.

Cell-Cultured Fish Meat via Scale-Up Expansion of Carassius auratus Skeletal Muscle Cells Using Edible Porous Microcarriers and Quality Evaluation

Emerging technologies for cell-cultured fish meat as an environmentally friendly protein source for humans still have many obstacles, including large-scale production of high-quality cells, differentiation and bioassembly of cellular material, and improvement of the quality of meat products. Here, we used edible porous microcarriers as scaffolds to support scalable skeletal muscle cell expansion to prepare centimeter-scale cell-cultured fish (CCM) of Carassius auratus for the first time. The quality of CCM was assessed by analyzing the texture, nutrition, flavor, and safety. The results indicated that CCM demonstrated a softer texture than natural fish due to a high moisture content. CCM contained higher protein and lower fat contents, with no significant difference in energy from natural golden crucian carp meat (NGM). CCM had better digestible properties, and 17 volatile components were identified in CCM, ten cocontained compared to NGM. ELISA quantified penicillin, streptomycin, vitamin D, and insulin residues as risk factors in CCM. In conclusion, we utilized edible porous microcarriers to scale-up the expansion of Carassius auratus skeletal muscle cells and bioassembled high-quality CCM of Carassius auratus for the first time, which represents a state-of-the-art protocol applicable to different fish species and even to other economic animals and provides a theoretical basis for scaling up cell-cultured meat production.

Analysis of current technology status for the industrialization of cultured meat

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.

A review: analysis of technical challenges in cultured meat production and its commercialization

The cultured meat technology has developed rapidly in recent years, but there are still many technical challenges that hinder the large-scale production and commercialization of cultured meat. Firstly, it is necessary to lay the foundation for cultured meat production by obtaining seed cells and maintaining stable cell functions. Next, technologies such as bioreactors are used to expand the scale of cell culture, and three-dimensional culture technologies such as scaffold culture or 3D printing are used to construct the three-dimensional structure of cultured meat. At the same time, it can reduce production costs by developing serum-free medium suitable for cultured meat. Finally, the edible quality of cultured meat is improved by evaluating food safety and sensory flavor, and combining ethical and consumer acceptability issues. Therefore, this review fully demonstrates the current development status and existing technical challenges of the cultured meat production technology with regard to the key points described above, in order to provide research ideas for the industrial production of cultured meat.

Exploring Ethical, Ecological, and Health Factors Influencing the Acceptance of Cultured Meat among Generation Y and Generation Z

Growing research and technological development is making the commercial production of cultured meat as a sustainable alternative to livestock-derived meat an increasing reality. However, to competitively position cultured meat on the food market, appropriate marketing and communication tailored to specific demographics is required. We aimed to define the motives that influence the willingness to include cultured meat in consumption based on age, specifically in Generation Z and Generation Y. To achieve this, data from a questionnaire survey that asked about ethical, ecological and health and safety factors around cultured meat was collected from 740 respondents (301 Generation Z and 439 Generation Y) and analyzed using the Mann-Whitney test and structural equation modeling. Generation Z were significantly more likely than Generation Y (p < 0.05) to consider cultured meat healthier than conventional meat because of the possibility of adjusting the composition and nutrient content. Generation Z were also significantly less concerned than Generation Y (p < 0.05) about the consequences that consuming cultured meat might have on human health. In Generation Z, ethical, ecological and health and safety factors significantly influenced their willingness to consume cultured meat (all p < 0.01). In conclusion, we confirmed the influence of ecological and ethical awareness, as well as health and safety, on willingness to include cultured meat in consumption; these areas could be targeted when marketing cultured meat.