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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
Abstract 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.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2021132
- PAR ID:
- 10406894
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Biotechnology and Bioengineering
- Volume:
- 120
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 0006-3592
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 1055-1067
- Size(s):
- p. 1055-1067
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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