A growing global meat demand requires a decrease in the environmental impacts of meat production. Cultured meat (CM) can potentially address multiple challenges facing animal agriculture, including those related to animal welfare and environmental impacts, but existing cost analyses suggest it is hard for CM to match the relatively low costs of conventionally produced meat. This study analyzes literature reports to contextualize CM’s protein and calorie use efficiencies, comparing CM to animal meat products’ feed conversion ratios, areal productivities, and nitrogen management. Our analyses show that CM has greater protein and energy areal productivities than conventional meat products, and that waste nitrogen from spent media is critical to CM surpassing the nitrogen use efficiency of meat produced in swine and broiler land-applied manure systems. The CM nutrient management costs, arising from wastewater treatment and land application, are estimated to be more expensive than in conventional meat production. Overall, this study demonstrates that nitrogen management will be a key aspect of sustainability in CM production, as it is in conventional meat systems.
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Techno‐economic modeling and assessment of cultivated meat: Impact of production bioreactor scale
Increases in global meat demands cannot be sustainably met with current methods of livestock farming, which has a substantial impact on greenhouse gas emissions, land use, water consumption, and farm animal welfare. Cultivated meat is a rapidly advancing technology that produces meat products by proliferating and differentiating animal stem cells in large bioreactors, avoiding conventional live‐animal farming. While many companies are working in this area, there is a lack of existing infrastructure and experience at commercial scale, resulting in many technical bottlenecks such as scale‐up of cell culture and media availability and costs. In this study, we evaluate theoretical cultivated beef production facilities with the goal of envisioning an industry with multiple facilities to produce in total 100,000,000 kg of cultured beef per year or ~0.14% of the annual global beef production. Using the computer‐aided process design software, SuperPro Designer®, facilities are modeled to create a comprehensive analysis to highlight improvements that can lower the cost of such a production system and allow cultivated meat products to be competitive. Three facility scenarios are presented with different sized production reactors; ~42,000 L stirred tank bioreactor (STR) with a base case cost of goods sold (COGS) of $35/kg, ~211,000 L STR with a COGS of $25/kg, and ~262,000 L airlift reactor (ALR) with a COGS of $17/kg. This study outlines how advances in scaled up bioreactors, alternative bioreactor designs, and decreased media costs are necessary for commercialization of cultured meat products.
more » « less- Award ID(s):
- 2021132
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10406894
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Biotechnology and Bioengineering
- Volume:
- 120
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 0006-3592
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 1055-1067
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract Cultivated meat production requires bioprocess optimization to achieve cell densities that are multiple orders of magnitude higher compared to conventional cell culture techniques. These processes must maximize resource efficiency and cost-effectiveness by attaining high cell growth productivity per unit of medium. Microcarriers, or carriers, are compatible with large-scale bioreactor use, and offer a large surface-area-to-volume ratio for the adhesion and proliferation of anchorage-dependent animal cells. An ongoing challenge persists in the efficient retrieval of cells from the carriers, with conflicting reports on the effectiveness of trypsinization and the need for additional optimization measures such as carrier sieving. To surmount this issue, edible carriers have been proposed, offering the advantage of integration into the final food product while providing opportunities for texture, flavor, and nutritional incorporation. Recently, a proof of concept (POC) utilizing inactivated mycelium biomass derived from edible filamentous fungus demonstrated its potential as a support structure for myoblasts. However, this POC relied on a model mammalian cell line combination with a single mycelium species, limiting realistic applicability to cultivated meat production. This study aims to advance the POC. We found that the species of fungi composing the carriers impacts C2C12 myoblast cell attachment—with carriers derived from
Aspergillus oryzae promoting the best proliferation. C2C12 myoblasts effectively differentiated on mycelium carriers when induced in myogenic differentiation media. Mycelium carriers also supported proliferation and differentiation of bovine satellite cells. These findings demonstrate the potential of edible mycelium carrier technology to be readily adapted in product development within the cultivated meat industry. -
null (Ed.)Antimicrobial resistance is a threat to global health, aggravated by the use of antimicrobials in livestock production. Mitigating the growing economic costs related to antimicrobial use in livestock production requires strong global coordination, and to that end policy makers can leverage global and national food animal trade policies, such as bans and user fees. Evaluation of such policies requires representing the interactions between competing producers in the global meat market, which is usually out of the scope of statistical models. For that, we developed a game-theoretic food system model of global livestock production and trade between 18 countries and aggregate world regions. The model comprises the largest producing and consuming countries, the explicit interconnections between countries, and the use of antimicrobials in food animal production. Our model allows us to provide policy insights beyond standard literature and assess the trade-off between trade, cost of a policy, and antimicrobials-induced productivity. We studied three scenarios: global increased user fees on antimicrobials, a global ban of meat imports from Brazil, and a decrease in China's meat consumption. We found that a user fee that increases the price of antimicrobials by 50% globally leads to a 33% reduction in global antimicrobial use. However, participation of developing and emerging countries in the coordination scheme is jeopardized, since they become less competitive for meat sales compared to developed countries. When meat imports from Brazil are banned globally, importers of Brazil's meat would turn primarily to the U.S. to supplement their demand. Lastly, meeting China's medium-term lower meat consumption target would not affect global antimicrobial use, but could increase China's antimicrobial use by 11%. We highlighted the importance of trade for the outcome of a policy and concluded that global cooperation is required to align the incentives of all countries toward tackling antimicrobial resistance.more » « less
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There is a growing need to develop novel technologies that reduce reactive nitrogen concentrations in wastewater streams and decrease our reliance on fossil fuel energy required to produce N-based chemicals and fertilizers. This study conducts a techno-economic analysis (TEA) and a life cycle assessment (LCA) of the electrochemical conversion of nitrate ions (NO3–) present in wastewater to hydroxylamine (NH2OH), a valuable chemical intermediate. We employ experimental data and modeling assumptions to determine NH2OH production costs and life cycle emissions for a small-scale facility (producing 1500 kg-NH2OH/day) and a large-scale facility (producing 50,000 kg-NH2OH/day) integrated into a wastewater treatment plant. The present NH2OH production costs for the small- and large-scale facilities are estimated at $6.14/kg-NH2OH and $5.37/kg-NH2OH, respectively. The parameters dominating the electrochemical reactor cost are electrolyte, separations, and fixed cost, with their values as $1.48, $0.96, and $0.53/kg. Future cost reduction projections indicate that the present NH2OH production costs for the small- and large-scale facilities can be reduced to $2.79/kg-NH2OH and $2.06/kg-NH2OH (NH2OH market price = $1.72/kg), respectively, with improvements in the sensitivity analysis parameters. LCA results indicate that the proposed electrochemical pathway to produce NH2OH has lower life cycle impacts than the conventional pathway.more » « less
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