It may sound like science fiction, but it’s coming to your plate in the near future! Cultivating our meat using just a small sample of animal cells is now a reality. Companies like Memphis Meats and scientists like Dr. Mark Post have pioneered this technology to develop products spanning the gamut of chicken, fish, pork, and other meats. Closer to home, companies like Shiok Meats are also cultivating seafood from cells. The future looks bright, but challenges remain. While in India we can leverage our expertise in the bio-pharma and manufacturing sectors to crossover to this new exciting field, there are barriers to entry and distribution in the form of high costs, regulation, and scientific know-how. In this episode of Feeding 10 Billion, Varun and Ramya talk to Dr. Sandhya Sriram of Shiok Meats to find out how she is working on breaking through these barriers to bring cell-based shrimp, lobster, and crab to our plates!

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ORGANIZATIONS, INSTITUTES AND CELL-BASED MEAT COMPANIES MENTIONED:

• MEMPHIS MEATS : Memphis Meats is the world’s first cell-based meat company. Co-founded by Dr. Uma Valeti, a Mayo Clinic trained cardiologist originally from Vijayawada, Memphis Meats' mission is to bring delicious and healthy meats to consumers by harvesting it from cells, instead of animals. Memphis Meats makes its food by sourcing high-quality cells from animals and cultivating them into meat - think of a farm at a tiny scale. They cut some steps from the current process (like raising and processing animals) and bring tasty nutritious meat to consumers - keeping the benefits of conventional meat but that's also better for animals and at scale uses significantly less land, water, energy and food inputs. Their process also produces less waste and dramatically fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

• MOSA MEAT : Dr Mark Post ate the $330,000 cell-based hamburger (created in a research project funded by Google co-founder, Sergey Brin) during a press conference in London in 2013, and two years later, he co-founded Mosa Meat to bring cultivated meat products to market. Mosa Meat intends to commercialise cultured meat (also known as clean meat) and bring it to plates everywhere. Thanks to significant scientific breakthroughs, Mosa Meat has scaled up their production process and brought the price of their meat down and intends to have their first products in the market in the next four years.

• SHIOK MEATS : Shiok in Singapore and Malay slang means fantastic and delicious. Shiok Meats is the first cell-based clean meat company in Singapore and South-East Asia. Their mission is to bring delicious, clean and healthy seafood like crustacean meats (including shrimp, crab and lobster) by harvesting meat from cells instead of animals. Their meats are animal-, health- and environment-friendly with the same taste, texture, more nutrients and no cruelty.

• INSTITUTE OF CHEMICAL TECHNOLOGY (ICT): The Institute of Chemical Technology or ICT (formerly UDCT) is chemical technology research institute located in Mumbai, India. ICT partnered with the Good Food Institute, India, to set up the world’s first government research centre for the development of clean meat. Read more about the partnership here 

• CENTRE FOR CELLULAR AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (CCMB): The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology or CCMB is an Indian biotechnology research establishment located in Hyderabad that operates under the aegis of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. In April 2019, The Government of India’s Department of Biotechnology granted $640,000 (Rs 4.5 crores) to CCMB and National Research Centre on Meat (NRCMeat) — the largest ever government investment for cell-based meat research. Read more here 

What is cell-based meat? Cell-based meat (often referred to as clean meat or cultivated meat or even cultured meat) is genuine animal meat that can replicate the sensory and nutritional profile of conventionally produced meat because it’s comprised of the same cell types and arranged in the same three-dimensional structure as animal tissue. It isn’t imitation or synthetic meat; it’s actual meat that is grown from cells outside of an animal.

Dr Mark Post’s Ted Talk at TedX Haarlem in 2013: Meet the new meat 

What is Cellular Aquaculture? Cellular agriculture is defined as the production of agricultural products from cell cultures rather than from whole plants or animals. With growing interest in cellular agriculture as a means to address public health, environmental, and animal welfare challenges of animal agriculture, the concept of producing seafood from fish cell- and tissue-cultures is emerging as an approach to address similar challenges with industrial aquaculture systems and marine capture. Cell-based seafood—as opposed to animal-based seafood—can combine developments in biomedical engineering with modern aquaculture techniques. Biomedical engineering developments such as closed-system bioreactor production of land animal cells create a basis for the large scale production of marine animal cells. Aquaculture techniques such as genetic modification and closed system aquaculture have achieved significant gains in production that can pave the way for innovations in cell-based seafood production. Source: Cell-based Fish  : A Novel Approach to Seafood Production and an Opportunity for Cellular Agriculture, Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems.

SANDHYA'S BLOG Curvaceous Women in Fashion: If you want to read Sandhya’s blog on fashion, click here 

DID YOU KNOW? World Firsts in Cell-based Meat: a) In 2013 Professor Mark Post created the world's first cell-based burger patty b) In 2016, Memphis Meats created the world's first cell-based meatball c) In 2017 Finless Foods created the world's first cell-based fish d) In 2017, Memphis Meats created the world's first cell-based chicken and duck

RESOURCES:

Read more about cultivated meat on GFI’s website : Dr Liz Specht’s Article on Food Technology: Is the future of meat animal-free? 

Learn more about cultivated meat by taking our free online course

If you would like to read more about these companies mentioned in the podcast: Techcrunch: Shiok Meats takes the cultured meat revolution to the seafood aisle with plans for cultured shrimp 

Forbes: Michael Pellman Rowland on Shiok Meats 

Rolling Stone: Would you eat a lab-grown duck breast? Inside the alternate meat industry  Inc, Why This Cardiologist Is Betting That His Lab-Grown Meat Startup Can Solve the Global Food Crisis 

CNBC, Inside the San Francisco lab that’s growing meat in a petri dish 

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