Angina

Artificial cultivation of meat. Artificial meat has dropped sharply in price

About a third of the land is used for growing large cattle. As a result of the activities of the livestock sector, up to 15% of greenhouse gases and billions of tons are wasted annually fresh water. At the same time, the livestock often suffers from diseases, and the consumer runs the risk of encountering salmonella every now and then, coli and others infectious agents. According to scientists, only artificial meat can save the ever-growing population and the environment.

The first experiments on creating test tube meat were conducted by NASA in 2001. Then scientists managed to grow a product similar to fish fillet from goldfish cells. At the end of 2009, Dutch biotechnologists grew a meat product from the cells of a living pig. Another 4 years later, in London, they fried a cutlet made from artificially grown meat, which in texture and taste qualities resembled beef.

This is important

There is no need to confuse imitation meat with a synthetically grown product. In the first case, tempeh, soy texture and spices are used as a meat substitute, and in the second, we are dealing with real meat grown in a laboratory. Imitation meat is similar to natural product only to taste, whereas biotechnology allows you to get the most real minced meat without killing anyone.

How is artificial meat made?

The technology for growing synthetic meat can be divided into two stages:

Stem cell collection;
creating conditions for their cultivation and division.

After collection, the stem cells are placed in a bioreactor, where a special sponge-matrix is created in which future meat grows. During the growing process, cells are abundantly supplied with oxygen and nutrients, necessary for rapid growth. Since cultured meat is muscle tissue, biotechnologists create special conditions for training cells and the fibers formed from them.

Currently, scientists have learned to produce two types of meat in vitro:

Unrelated muscle cells(a kind of meat slurry);
cells connected into interconnected fibers (a more complex technology that provides the usual structure of meat).

Synthetic meat - benefits and harms

In the United States alone, according to the environmental organization EWG, up to 70% of antibiotics produced go to animal welfare. Most of them end up in our stomachs along with the meat we eat. Meat from a test tube is free from such disadvantages, as it is produced under sterile conditions. Together with the drug threat, the risks of infection are greatly reduced dangerous diseases, the pathogens of which, despite all checks, can be contained in any piece of meat. In addition, experts are already talking about the possibility of regulating the fat content of the final product, which will make it possible to create “healthy” meat.

Also, the benefit of artificial meat is saving natural resources. Scientists from the Universities of Amsterdam and Oxford have calculated that in the future the technology under consideration will reduce production space by 98%, while energy consumption and impact on environment- by 60%.

As for possible side effects from switching to synthetic meat, it is too early to talk about them. Currently, none have been carried out clinical trial, proving the harm of this product.

Artificial meat market - development prospects

According to EWG, by 2050, global consumption of meat products will double. Sooner or later modern methods meat production will not be able to meet the growing demand. Therefore, humanity has no choice but to follow the path of growing laboratory beef and pork on an industrial scale.

The production of the first artificial burger cost scientists 320 thousand dollars. Today its price has dropped 30,000 times to $11. The hour is not far off when a synthetic cutlet with ideal content proteins and fats will cost less than cutlets made from regular minced meat. From this moment on, the development of the industry will no longer be stopped.

The company producing artificial meat revealed its production secrets to journalists.

Cultured meat is moving from an exotic environmentalist whim to a popular product. According to the latest data, demand for it has already exceeded supply. This was reported by Beyond Meat, one of the American startups that dreams of replacing slaughterhouse meat with its “clean” counterpart. Since 2016, the startup has already sold 13 million plant-based burgers through retail chains, restaurants and university canteens.

Fast Comany visited Beyond Meat's new laboratory in El Segundo, California. Here on an area of 2400 square meters Dozens of scientists are busy trying to make artificial meat as similar to the real thing as possible. They work daily to improve four key parameters - smell, taste, texture and appearance.

On the Beyond Meat team - molecular biologists, chemists, plant physiologists and other specialists. Some of them had previously worked in science or searched for cures for cancer, but chose to join the food industry of the future. Founder and general manager Beyond Meat Ethan Brown believes that without many specialists from different fields, the company could not succeed.

He compares his team's work to the Manhattan Project, which aimed to create atomic bomb. And Brown's comparison doesn't seem like an exaggeration when you think about the consequences of artificial meat production. If Beyond Meat and their peers at other companies succeed, they could feed billions of people and reduce pressure on the environment. Traditional red meat production is accompanied by massive emissions of greenhouse gases - livestock during fattening generates 10-40 times more of them than farms that grow vegetables or grains. The creators claim that replacing natural meat with “test tube” meat will help delay climate catastrophe.

The Beyond Meat lab uses high technology not only during production, but also during product testing. For example, “cutlets” are tested for elasticity and juiciness by an “electronic tongue”. An entire department of the laboratory works on the color of the product. Beyond Meat burgers already look very realistic. They even turn brown during cooking, but the company wants to achieve the perfect color.

Specialists working with odors are also not idle. To make artificial meat smell realistic, you need to understand exactly which molecules are responsible for the meat aroma and find their analogues in plants. For this purpose, a special “electronic nose” is used - an odor detector.

Beyond Meat is preparing to hit the market with a third faux burger option. In order not to be outdone by competitors, Ethan Brown intends to update the burgers every year, making them more and more “meaty”.

A team of tasters will help you make sure that the meat from the test tube has actually become better. In El Segundo, they work in a “sensory lab” where they are not distracted by noise, light or odors.

Brown says the work of Beyond Meat scientists is more difficult than that of their colleagues at other companies, such as Impossible Food. The founder of the company demands to create artificial meat without the use of GMOs and gluten. Brown insists that Beyond Meat products should not be associated with "controversial" ingredients. He believed that this would significantly increase the confidence of customers, who are increasingly interested in the composition of food.

The company believes that the artificial meat industry will be a success. Today it costs almost twice as much as the present one, but new technologies will significantly reduce the cost of its production. A plant-based burger is cheaper than the real thing - this is a prospect for the coming years.

Beyond the economic argument, Beyond Meat's strengths include growing consumer responsibility. All more people refuse products whose production threatens the environment and climate. Many of them are ready to replace environmentally hazardous meat with plant-based analogues. According to surveys, the number of such consumers has grown by 43% over five years.

As evidence of how quickly the world is changing, Brown cites newspaper clippings that hang in his office. Their authors mercilessly attack the company's products. Just a few years ago, faux burgers were considered a lost cause. However, Beyond Meat was able to achieve success despite the doubts of skeptics. Today, the company, which has raised $72 million in funding, is preparing to produce a range of new products.

Not everyone is happy about the rise in popularity of artificial meat. For example, New Zealand politicians consider it a threat to the country's economy. New Zealand- one of the most environmentally friendly states in many respects. But the country cannot abandon the production of red meat, the export of which brings the budget $6.1 billion a year.

In 2013, the cost of a burger with a patty made from lab-grown meat was over $300,000, and now it barely exceeds $10. At the same time, scientists continue to improve technology to make artificial meat even more affordable and finally bring it to the global market in the next five years.

Note that most laboratory methods for growing meat involve the use of real animal cells obtained from blood serum. In a bioreactor (no, not that one), muscles are formed from cells, which become the basis of meat.

Previously, the cost of such technology did not allow introducing artificial meat to the market and scaling up production. So, in 2013, biologist Mark Post from the University of Maastricht created the world's first burger from meat grown in vitro. The production of the product cost a significant $325,000. Since then, the development of technology has gradually reduced this price, and today a kilogram of artificial meat already costs $80, and one burger costs $11. Thus, in four years the price has decreased by almost 30,000 times.

However, scientists still have work to do. As of November 2016, a pound of ground beef cost $3.60, which is almost 10 times cheaper than test tube meat. However, scientists believe that in 5-10 years, artificial meatballs and hamburgers will be sold in stores at a reasonable price.

According to him, the company expects demand primarily from meat lovers, and not vegetarians. Because of high content Iron “meat” from Impossible Foods is as close in taste as possible to a natural product and has little in common with soy-based animal protein substitutes common on the market.

Last summer, burgers with artificial meat from Impossible Foods first appeared at the Momofuku Nishi restaurant and since then there has been no end to customers, writes Business Insider. In addition, their meat is also sold in the fast food chain Umami Burger.

Finally, we note that according to Allied Market Research, the market for plant-based meat products will grow by 8.4% every year and will reach $5.2 billion by 2020.

Academician of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences Joseph Rogov has a patent for the production of artificial meat from stem cells. A year and a half ago, the scientist, now 86 years old, cooked a steak from meat he grew in his laboratory. He himself does not like the word “artificial”: the meat we eat can rather be called artificial, since it contains hormones and antibiotics, Rogov believes.

All this looks like science fiction, and meat grown in vitro has already been nicknamed Frankenmite - by analogy with food for Frankenstein's monster, made in a similar way.

Rogov received a patent for the production of artificial meat back in 2006, but the idea appeared back in 2000, he wrote it down on the calendar and put it aside. Later, rummaging through old papers, Rogov saw his note - “amoeba - meat - proliferation (reproduction)” - and began experiments. He created this product together with academician Lev Ernst, the father of the head of Channel One, Konstantin Ernst, and several other scientists. 41 doctors of science came out of his laboratory, and Rogov himself received three state prizes.

Today Rogov needs money to continue his work. But he is not looking for investors, counting on state support. His school received 2 million rubles. within the framework of the grant, including for this research. But Rogov lost his laboratory during the merger of the Moscow State University of Applied Biotechnology, which he headed, and the Moscow State University food production. Rogov hopes for its revival at the new university. At the end of last year, another merger took place - this time the Moscow State University of Food Production with the Moscow State University of Design and Technology. On paper for now, Rogov clarifies. He hasn’t got a laboratory yet: he needs money for equipment. At this stage, about 1 million rubles are needed. to the bioreactor for further laboratory research, taste testing and product safety. This may take another five years. A bioreactor for growing meat cells is like a large mattress; all processes in it are automated. Rogov’s student Irina Volkova saw such a bioreactor in Switzerland at one of the universities.

It is worth noting that in Russia there are practically no venture funds investing in food products, and there are also only a few more conservative private equity funds with a similar profile. For example, the American Agribusiness Partners International invested in traditional projects such as “Chicken Kingdom”, “Akodek” (cheese production), etc. Irina Rukhadze, managing partner of Agribusiness Management Company, says that “the artificial meat project is not suitable for us. Most likely, in Russia this will be a niche product, designed for a very narrow audience, people who refuse natural meat for ethical and environmental reasons. In addition, we have an understanding that Russia is close to overproduction of chicken and pork, which calls into question the feasibility of producing a new type of meat.” President of the Meat Union Mushegh Mamikonyan believes that “the Artificial Meat project so far has exclusively scientific significance. He looks like a creature internal organs human in transplantology. It will have practical significance no earlier than in 25-30 years, when foreign technologies for the production of this product appear in Russia. But the price of such meat is very high, it is cheaper to import beef, and in 2016 we will have enough of our own pork and chicken, without imports.” “To replace natural meat in our diet, it’s not worth making artificial meat,” the manager is confident executive committee NGO "National Meat Association" Sergey Yushin. “Natural meat is a tastier and more understandable product for people.”

Why do we need artificial meat?

What's the point in growing artificial meat if you can get it? traditional way, raising cows, pigs, poultry, etc.? The fact is that the need for meat in the next 40 years, according to the FDA food products and US Medicines (Food and Drug Administration), will double, and traditional livestock farming will not be able to meet this demand. In Russia, meat consumption will increase by 60% in the next 30 years, according to the National Meat Association, and they do not see any problems meeting the growing demand. Meanwhile, livestock is mutating: animals eat feed grown on harmful nitrates, they are given meat additives, growth hormones, antibiotics (often even to prevent diseases), and as a result they can no longer resist infections. Hence the outbreaks of such serious illnesses like swine fever mad cow disease etc.

Last year in China, 16% of pigs were found to have E. coli, which the most powerful antibiotic, colistin, cannot destroy, writes the journal Lancet Infection Diseases. The reason is that Chinese farmers have been adding colistin to their animals' food uncontrollably for decades. This powerful antibiotic is used when other antibiotics are unable to cope with bacterial infection. Scientists fear that this E. coli will spread throughout the world, and today there is no effective medicine to cope with a new disease.

“The future is in test tube meat. Artificially created, with texture and taste, much cheaper and healthier - this is what will sooner or later replace all animal husbandry on the planet,” Mikhail Kokorich, owner of the Dauria Aerospace company, comments on this news on his Facebook. “In Russia, as in Europe, there are very strict requirements regarding the use of antibiotics and the maximum permissible levels of dangerous and harmful substances in meat,” argues Sergei Yushin. - Our responsible producers stop using antibiotics long before slaughter, so that the remaining drugs can be completely removed from the body. Monitoring compliance with current requirements certainly needs to be strengthened.”

Another reason to abandon natural meat was clearly demonstrated by the creators of the most famous film about the impact of livestock farming on the ecology of the earth - Cowspiracy. They took statistics from US official bodies, according to which livestock production produces 18% of all gases (primarily methane) that create greenhouse effect, and transport - only 13%. The greenhouse effect leads to global warming and the destruction of many species of animals and plants. Livestock consumes 33% of all clean water in the world. So, to grow 1 kg of wheat, 60 liters of water are required, and 1 kg of meat - 1250-3000 liters. 2,500 cows produce as much excrement per day as a city of 411,000 people, etc.

Cattle eat enough grain per year to feed 8 billion people, which is about 1 billion more than the current population of the Earth. But nearly 1 billion people are undernourished. And there are hundreds of such facts.

The largest Russian manufacturers meat, Miratorg and Cherkizovo Group refused to comment on the emergence of a competitor - artificial meat. Irina Volkova believes that “ Russian market, most likely, will not be ready to accept artificial meat for a long time, since we have a different mentality: we have a lot of land, and we do not really think about the ecology and ethics of animal husbandry, and in the Netherlands there is little land, and the consumer is ready.”

When will artificial meat hit the shelves?

The Mosa Meat company from the Netherlands intends to engage in mass production of artificial meat from stem cells in five years. The technology was developed by Professor Mark Post from the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, and his team created the Mosa Meat company. Post took a small piece of muscle tissue from a living cow, divided it into several fibers, then extracted stem cells from these fibers and placed them in a solution likely similar to the one Irina Volkova used. Post himself never described the process exactly. The cells grew into threads about 12 mm long and only 1 mm in diameter. Then the threads were placed in a nutrient gel, and a piece of biomass was formed. These cells grow as satellite cells that repair animal or human skin when it is damaged and form muscle tissue.

Irina Volkova was the only Russian scientist who attended a symposium in the Netherlands last October, where Mark Post made a sensational statement about the mass production of artificial meat. Volkova also gave a presentation at this symposium. What is the difference in the technology of growing meat between Rogov-Volkova and Post?

“Post works with satellite cells, from which only muscle tissue itself can be grown, and we work with mesenchymal stem cells, from which muscle, fat, and bone tissue. Our cells can reproduce an unlimited number of times, but Lent’s can reproduce a limited number of times.” But Post does not disclose the details of obtaining his product, and he did not show his bioreactor to the symposium participants. He also did not respond to Ko’s request.

Almost $400,000 was spent on Post’s research and the process of growing meat for the first cutlet. $330,000 was given by Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google. In addition, the Dutch government allocated $2 million for these developments to Mark Post's predecessor, William van Eelen, and other scientists.

In 2013, the Dutch introduced the world's first burger with meat grown from stem cells. The meat turned out gray-white. Lent added dyes to it to make the meat look more appetizing. But the tasters noted that the meat turned out to be a bit dry, although the taste was absolutely meaty. This happened due to the lack of fat in the meat, says Volkova. If the first burger cost $400,000, then when mass production is launched, the price will be about $80, or 64 euros per 1 kg, according to Mark Post. However, the problem of the nutrient medium in which the stem cells must grow remains. So far, it is very expensive due to the blood serum, which is taken from the aborted material of cows. But there are companies that are preparing a substitute for this whey.

Stem cells from one cow are enough to produce 175 million burgers, without having to kill her. Traditional livestock farming would require 440,000 cows to produce the same amount of burgers, says Mark Post's team. These burgers are safe because they do not contain chemical additives. Currently, Post is thinking about producing meat using 3D bioprinters. Gabor Forgacs from the University of Missouri (USA), founder of the company Modern Meadow, invented a 3D bioprinter to produce thicker layers of tissue, which Mark Post's team cannot yet do.

According to the Environmental Science & Technology Journal, meat grown in a bioreactor will use 45% less energy, 99% less water, and the greenhouse effect will be reduced by 96%. Post says he would be happy if cultured meat meant there were fewer farms and slaughterhouses in the world.

How meat is obtained in laboratory conditions

Rogova’s student, Candidate of Technical Sciences Irina Volkova, reveals the details of the process: stem cells taken from bone marrow cows are placed in a nutrient solution consisting of water, amino acids, glucose, vitamins, 10% serum obtained from aborted cows, and a weak antibiotic. All this is placed in plastic bottles with a cap, or so-called culture mattresses. Cells in a nutrient solution grow on the surface of specially treated plastic. After a week, the cells double, they are removed from the plastic and placed on three-dimensional macroporous microcarriers and cultured for another four days.

After obtaining a pure culture, the antibiotic is not used. Then so-called retinoic acid-based inducers are added to the cells, which form fat and muscle tissue. On the 30th day, the cells or biomass are ready. Cells reproduce by division, like an amoeba. The growth process of artificial meat tissues to some extent copies natural growth cells in the animal's body, the production rate of such meat is relatively small - about 30 days.

You can take stem cells once, form a bank of stem cells and provide yourself with cells almost forever. Rogov did not interfere with genes. Such meat is not dangerous cancer diseases for its consumers, moreover, the stem cells from which it is grown have medicinal properties, for example, they can participate in the regeneration of damaged tissues without causing rejection, etc. But this is a different, medical, field of their application, and its new revolutionary direction is transplantology, or the transplantation of artificially grown organs.

Artificial meat has no taste when raw, but it develops when fried. “We examined the amino acid composition of this meat, it coincides with cow meat. We are moving in the right direction,” says Rogov.

- Natalya Kuznetsova

About a third of the land is used for raising cattle. The livestock sector produces up to 15% of greenhouse gases and wastes billions of tons of fresh water each year. At the same time, the livestock often suffers from diseases, and the consumer risks encountering salmonella, E. coli and other infectious pathogens every now and then. According to scientists, only artificial meat can save the ever-growing population and the environment.

This is important

There is no need to confuse imitation meat with a synthetically grown product. In the first case, tempeh, soy texture and spices are used as a meat substitute, and in the second, we are dealing with real meat grown in a laboratory. Imitation meat is similar to a natural product only in taste, while biotechnology allows you to get the most real minced meat without killing anyone.

How is artificial meat made?

The technology for growing synthetic meat can be divided into two stages:

Stem cell collection;
creating conditions for their cultivation and division.

After collection, the stem cells are placed in a bioreactor, where a special sponge-matrix is created in which future meat grows. During the growing process, cells are abundantly supplied with oxygen and nutrients necessary for rapid growth. Since artificially grown meat is muscle tissue, biotechnologists create special conditions for training the cells and the fibers formed from them.

Currently, scientists have learned to produce two types of meat in vitro:

Unconnected muscle cells (a kind of meat slurry);
cells connected into interconnected fibers (a more complex technology that provides the usual structure of meat).

Synthetic meat - benefits and harms

In the United States alone, according to the environmental organization EWG, up to 70% of antibiotics produced go to animal welfare. Most of them end up in our stomachs along with the meat we eat. Meat from a test tube is free from such disadvantages, as it is produced under sterile conditions. Along with the medicinal threat, the risks of contracting dangerous diseases, the causative agents of which, despite all checks, can be contained in any piece of meat, are greatly reduced. In addition, experts are already talking about the possibility of regulating the fat content of the final product, which will make it possible to create “healthy” meat.

Also, the benefit of artificial meat is to save natural resources. Scientists from the Universities of Amsterdam and Oxford have calculated that in the future the technology under consideration will reduce production space by 98%, and energy consumption and environmental impact by 60%.

As for possible side effects from switching to synthetic meat, it is too early to talk about them. At the moment, not a single clinical study has been conducted to prove the harm of this product.

Artificial meat market - development prospects

According to EWG, by 2050, global consumption of meat products will double. Sooner or later, modern methods of meat production will not be able to meet the increasing demand. Therefore, humanity has no choice but to follow the path of growing laboratory beef and pork on an industrial scale.

The production of the first artificial burger cost scientists 320 thousand dollars. Today its price has dropped 30,000 times to $11. The hour is not far off when a synthetic cutlet with an ideal content of proteins and fats will cost less than a cutlet made from conventional minced meat. From this moment on, the development of the industry will no longer be stopped.