Developing a sustainable Global Food System to feed the human population, expected to reach 10 billion by 2050, will require a fundamental transformation in the ways we source nutritious food products, whilst protecting the planet's resources. The OECD/FAO agricultural Outlook report 2021 projects a 15% increase in the demand for meat globally over the next decade. Meeting this demand by conventional agriculture will lead to further intensification of farming, resulting in further deforestation and increased greenhouse gas emissions (>9%), which will have negative impact on our climate. Consumers are looking to alternatives to traditional meat, which is driving significant investment in novel technologies to produce cultured meat. Cultured meat has the potential to fundamentally change the way we produce meat, offering an animal-harm free, antibiotic-free, nutritionally balanced product, produced within an ecosystem of renewable energy sources. Cultured meat products have already been approved by food regulators in the US and Singapore and it is expected that other countries will follow. A small number of restaurants and butchers offers cultured meat products in Singapore. Investment in this emerging industry has surpassed 2 billion U$S in 2022, and start-up companies now exist in more than 25 countries. The challenge for this emerging industry is to develop a robust, reproducible, and cost-effective cultured meat manufacturing method using small tissue biopsies as the starting material. Currently, the efficiency of cell isolation and consistency in their proliferative capacity in bioreactors is highly variable between batches, making manufacturing inefficient and inconsistent. To address this critical bottleneck and building on work previously funded by BBSRC, this project aims to develop a platform for the generation of reprogrammed somatic cells from tissue biopsies with potential for differentiation into muscle progenitors. We will apply the knowledge gained from our recent work on livestock embryonic stem cell biology to device a reprogramming methodology for converting somatic cells obtained from biopsies into reprogrammed pluripotent cells. To achieve this goal, we will use established mRNA reprogramming technology and grow the cells under chemically defined, and animal-free culture conditions, compliant with the food standards guidelines. This technical innovation will enable the efficient and reproducible generation of stable cells obtained from small biopsies of any livestock species with high competence for muscle differentiation when expanded in bioreactors. This technological solution will greatly enhance the sustainability of cultured meat production and consequently a wider acceptance of this source of meat by consumers.

The global meat consumption is substantial, with the average person consuming 45 kg of meat per year, and meat comprising 18% of the global food supply. This demand led to the slaughter of 80 billion animals in 2018, resulting in 340 million tons of meat production. However, despite animal-derived products providing only 17% of global food and 40-58% of proteins, animal agriculture has a disproportionate environmental impact. It occupies 77% of agricultural lands, utilizes 30% of water resources, and contributes 12-20% of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. Concerns about meat consumption extend beyond environmental impacts. Epidemics like swine flu and avian flu have raised health concerns, and the use of antibiotics in the meat industry has led to antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Cultured meat, also known as lab-grown or cell-cultured meat, has emerged as a potential solution to address sustainability challenges associated with traditional animal farming. The process involves isolating animal cells and allowing them to proliferate in a culture medium within a bioreactor. The cells differentiate into specialized cell types found in meat, and the matured cultured meat can be harvested, processed, and used to create various meat-based products. Currently, only Singapore and the US have approved the sale of cultured meat products, but their availability is limited due to high production costs and retail prices. The analysis indicates that the cell culture medium constitutes the majority of the costs, primarily attributed to the more expensive components such as recombinant proteins, essential amino acids, and growth factors. Studies have shown that cultured meat has the potential to significantly reduce energy, land, and water use, as well as greenhouse gas emissions, however, recent research indicates that cultured meat may still have higher emissions than pork and poultry but considerably lower emissions compared to beef, primarily due to the production of the culture medium ingredients and energy use in bioreactors. The current research project's objective is to develop a simple cell (SimCell) -based biocatalyst that can convert metabolic wastes from animal cell culture, including ammonia and lactic acid, into those more expensive components such as essential amino acids and growth factors. SimCells are modified bacteria cells which cannot reproduce themselves but can perform certain functions as instructed by the designed gene circuits. The SimCells will then be placed in the animal cell culture bioreactor to convert the wastes into feed, which means less amount of cell culture medium need to be replaced, leading to reduced production cost and amount of waste. This project aims to enhance the sustainability of cultured meat production by reducing costs, improving resource efficiency, and potentially lowering environmental impacts.

Imagine being able to manufacture food anywhere in the world, or even in space, so everyone, everywhere, has enough nutritious food to eat! This dream can be achieved through Cellular Agriculture (Cell Ag). Cell Ag enables the production of food products that would normally come from an animal, such as meat and milk from cows, or from monocultures of crops such as oil palm trees, without having to keep increasing animal or plant numbers to feed our growing global population. Cell Ag, uses biological cell-level processes to create food via the 'building blocks of life' - the proteins, fats and carbohydrates. By delivering these building blocks, Cell Ag will transform food production by complementing traditional food production, so not only can we feed the world, but we can manufacture the food so that sustainability and social responsibility is embedded from the outset. Why would we wish to use Cell Ag rather than animals? Let's take the example of the building block, protein, from traditional meat. Life Cycle Assessments have shown that when comparing traditional meat manufacturing against the expected benefits of using Cell Ag, there is a predicted reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and land use, of up to 95%. The analysis also estimates that we could achieve up to 50% reduction in the use of water, compared to cattle farming. And we could reduce need for intensive farming so improving animal welfare too. So, with these benefits and the urgent need to achieve Net Zero Manufacturing and protect the planets resources. Why do we not have Cell Ag manufacturing in our homes or across all our food manufacturing sectors? There are several reasons - and our research will remove these blockers to Cell Ag manufacturing. Current status of Cell Ag Manufacturing research and outputs in the UK: In the UK (and across the World), there are pockets of excellent research being done, but little that focuses on delivering useable and scalable manufacturing machinery, processes, and systems in a coherent manner. The research tends to be in silos and focussed on aspects of the Manufacturing Value Chain. There are fundamental areas of research that need to be delivered to enable us to realise the Cell Ag potential, as well as transforming current research outputs to be useable. Through this Hub we will bring together the pockets of excellence in the UK, and deliver a coherent and targeted research programme that will ensure the UK Cell Ag research ecosystem is world-leading and has manufacturing impact. Rather than target a particular sector/type of food/product - the Hub will deliver manufacturing research which will enable production of food building blocks at local, regional and international levels. Our vision is to be the world leader in delivering materials, manufacturing processes and skills to escalate the world's adoption of sustainable Cell Ag food production. We will achieve this through becoming the net exporter of the building blocks of life.