- Meat, dairy and other animal-based foods are being replicated from cell tissues around the world
- Cells are cultivated in the lab and grown into products that are meat but do not involve slaughtering animals
- Three in 10 consumers already say they would be happy to eat meat produced this way
- Questions regarding ethical fears, regulatory hurdles and consumer acceptance now more pressing than ever
LONDON, UK – Lab grown meat, high on the agenda at COP28, has been cleared for sale in the US and Singapore as major markets look to allow meat that does not involve slaughtering animals, according to a Euromonitor expert.
Food sustainability has been made a top priority at United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) to be held in Dubai (30 November until 12 December 2023) with links between food systems, agriculture and climate change scheduled for discussion on December 10. Plant-based food will make up two thirds of the menu at this year’s conference with lab-grown meat available for delegates to try.
Lab grown meat, also known as cell-cultured, is created from animal cells and grown into meat products. Before the US approval only Singapore had approved lab grown chicken for human consumption. In 2023, the Netherlands became the first country in Europe to allow taste tastings, while Italy has banned it.
Other countries such as Japan, Australia, China and Israel have expressed support for the industry but have yet to approve it for sale. In Switzerland and the UK, regulators are currently considering applications by companies to produce and sell the meat.
As Tom Rees, Head of Food and Nutrition at Euromonitor International explains in his Away from Animals: Plant-based, Cell-structured and More report, meat, dairy and other animal-based food products are all being replicated from cell tissues around the world and questions regarding ethical fears, regulatory hurdles and consumer acceptance are now more pressing than ever.
Rees said: “The world's largest market for processed meat – the US – has now approved cell-cultivated chicken for human consumption. This holds the potential to be the most accurate of all alternatives to meat, dairy and beyond with three in 10 consumers already saying they would be happy to eat meat produced in this way.”
Food price inflation has seen consumers cut back on plant-based products as they are generally more expensive than animal-based alternatives. The health credentials of the alternatives are also increasingly under fire and more importantly an overheated launch environment meant many consumers have tried products which ultimately failed their taste and texture expectations.
The debate over the environmental impact of animal-based foods will become more common as climate change has an ever-more negative impact on people's lives. Governments will increasingly promote alternatives as a necessity and consumers will respond as animal-based foods become more expensive to purchase, explained Rees.
Rees said: “As the process is basically taking cells from live animals and growing them into meat or the tissue that creates milk, it is not a substitute in the way that plant-based products are, but rather is the equivalent of the animal-derived foods but without slaughter.
“This has claimed significant sustainability advantages, not least massively reduced need for livestock land, feed and water.”
Rees added that worldwide, countries and companies are working on and readying for these foods to become available. Perhaps the most significant development has been JBS – the largest meat processing company globally – purchasing BioTech Foods, a Spain-based cultivated meat firm. JBS committed USD100 million to development, and – in June 2023 – began construction of its first commercial-scale plant for cultivated meat. These developments marked a global meat giant publicly committing significant investment to this production method, despite its business being animal agriculture.
“The sustainability of producing animal-based food is an increasingly mainstream topic of discussion and many consumers understand that animal agriculture consumes much of the world’s resources - land, water and energy - and produces huge amounts of greenhouse gases.”
Many consumers believe that animal-based foods carry health risks. In dairy’s case that can be issues such as digestive problems, allergies or skin complaints. For meat, especially processed red meat, these could be heart disease, obesity or even cancer. Switching to alternatives was often made as a health-driven choice; while producers may argue over whether meat, dairy or alternatives are healthy or not, for many people the label plant-based is enough to convince them that they are taking a step in the right direction, said Rees.
“The better sustainability profile of low meat and dairy diets is becoming widely understood. Unlike the health motivator, those responding to the sustainability driver may be looking beyond their own lifespan, considering what the world will be like for their children and beyond.
“The animal welfare issue drove motivation for much of pre-plant-based vegetarian and vegan food’s popularity. However, in more recent terms, the growth in world demand for animal-based foods has driven growth in high-volume farming methods. This, coupled with easier-than-ever information sharing via social media means that more and more consumers are engaging with what happens from farm to fork, and many are reacting by cutting or at least limiting their use of the resulting foods.”
For further information see Euromonitor insights here