Will Cellular Agriculture Deliver on Its Sustainability Promise?

Cellular agriculture is an emerging field that uses cell cultivation to produce agricultural products. The term originally encompassed all cellular and acellular products made via cell cultivation, with the broader goal of replacing food and non-food products derived from traditional agriculture. The field aims to produce animal products without the environmental, ethical and resource burdens associated with conventional farming.^1,2

Cellular products, such as cultivated meat or microbial biomass (e.g., mycoprotein), involve growing cells that become part of the final product. In contrast, acellular products use cells to synthesize compounds, like proteins or fatty acids, that are then extracted for use, as in precision fermentation.

“Some cellular agriculture applications like mycoprotein-based products (e.g., Quorn) have been on the market for decades,” explained Hanna Tuomisto,  a professor of sustainable food systems at the University of Helsinki and Natural Resources Institute Finland. “However, many recent innovations are still classified as ‘novel foods’ in the EU and require regulatory approval before sale. Also, cultivated meat and precision fermentation products remain costly, and significant technological progress is needed to bring costs down to compete with conventional agriculture.”

Cellular agriculture offers several potential benefits, including reduced environmental impact, improved animal welfare and greater resource efficiency. However, the field is still in early stages, facing significant scientific, regulatory and economic hurdles.

This article examines the current landscape of cellular agriculture, particularly in cultured meat, and highlights the innovations and academic research pushing it toward commercial viability.

The benefits of cellular agriculture

Traditional meat production is among the most resource-intensive and environmentally damaging parts of the global food system. It generates significant greenhouse gas emissions, consumes vast amounts of water and land and contributes to deforestation and pollution. Cultured meat grown from animal cells in bioreactors offers a potentially more sustainable alternative.

“Generally, life cycle assessment (LCA) studies^3,4 show that cultivated meat has substantially lower land use and greenhouse gas emissions than beef, which has the highest environmental impact among meats,” said Tuomisto. “However, compared to poultry, which is highly efficient at converting feed to meat, cultivated meat doesn't always outperform, especially if the end product requires more developed muscle tissue, which demands longer production time and more energy.”

“Cellular agriculture has the potential to be more sustainable in areas such as water recycling and renewable energy use, if pharmaceutical-grade components are replaced with food- or feed-grade alternatives for cell proliferation and differentiation,” said Dr. Eirini Theodosiou, a senior lecturer in chemical and biochemical engineering at Aston University. “Most LCAs have concluded that less land is needed for cellular agriculture compared to traditional farming, although this can vary between species.”

Energy use remains a key concern. 

“Cultivated meat production often requires more electricity than even beef because it must replace the energy animals use naturally for maintaining their bodily functions,” said Tuomisto.

“Optimizing production systems – like using amino acids derived from legumes instead of synthetic sources, improving bioreactor design and water recycling – can lower energy requirements and significantly reduce environmental impact.”

Sourcing energy from low-emission or renewable sources can further lower the carbon footprint of cultivated meat.

“Even with the current electricity mix in many European countries, cultivated meat generally has a lower carbon footprint than beef,” Tuomisto noted.

Understanding LCA assumptions

Despite promising results, current LCAs depend heavily on assumptions due to the lack of commercial-scale production. These assumptions can drastically impact outcomes.

“A recent study claimed cultivated meat has 25 times the carbon footprint of beef,⁵” said Tuomisto. “But the study assumed all ingredients needed to meet pharmaceutical-grade sterility – an unnecessary and unrealistic assumption for food-grade production that inflated the energy consumption and, consequently, the carbon footprint.”

Critical LCA variables include the composition and amount of the culture medium, the source and treatment of inputs, local context and comparisons (e.g., cultivated meat vs. grass-fed beef vs. poultry) and how water use is measured. For example, cultivated meat may appear to use more water if only blue water, like tap or groundwater, is counted, ignoring the potential for water recycling in production facilities.

“The relative sustainability of cultivated meat ultimately depends on how we model these systems and what we compare them to,” concluded Tuomisto.

Tackling cellular agriculture’s scaling-up barriers

“One of the biggest challenges in bringing cultivated meat to market is scaling up animal cell culture to match the scales used in industrial biotechnology,” explained Theodosiou. “The total mammalian cell culture bioprocessing capacity in 2021 was 11.75 million litres.^5-6 To meet even 1% of current global meat production, this capacity must reach 300 million litres.”  

Such an increase in scale comes with technological challenges, such as equipment design and volumes of cell culture media.

Existing bioreactors, designed for biopharmaceutical applications, are not optimized for cultured meat production.

“We need to redesign the bioreactors to make them fit-for-purpose,” Theodosiou emphasized. “That may mean simpler designs or new formats, not traditionally used for biologics, like airlift reactors or hollow fiber systems.”

Another barrier is the high cost of the components needed for cell proliferation, particularly amino acids and proteins.

“Scaling up the use of these expensive components would significantly increase the cost of the final product, making it difficult for cultivated meat to become a viable commodity,” Theodosiou added.

To address this, researchers are exploring more affordable alternatives like hydrolysates and investigating ways to recycle waste materials from other production processes. However, the impact of these alternative media on the quality and nutritional profile of the final product still needs to be fully understood.

Edible scaffolds for cultivated meat

To replicate meat’s structure and texture, cultivated cells need scaffolds – support structures that promote growth, organization and differentiation. These serve two functions: as microcarriers supporting adherent cell expansion inside bioreactors and as a framework for successful cell differentiation into the final product.

Traditionally, non-edible microcarriers have been used in stem cell bioprocessing, but they pose challenges for food applications.

“One of the biggest issues is detaching cells from microcarriers after cell expansion,” explained Theodosiou. “Detachment methods normally involve costly enzymes that can leave residue in the final product. They also lead to product loss, which is highly undesirable so early in the process.”

Edible scaffolds remove the need for cell detachment and can enhance the final product’s nutrition, flavour and texture.

“Plant-based materials are an obvious choice for edible scaffolds, but they lack or have a smaller percentage of the necessary biological motifs that promote cell attachment, migration, and differentiation,” Theodosiou said.

Scaffold design methods can affect its morphology, how cells attach to it and how the final product feels and tastes. “Around 9–10% of the meat mass could be scaffold,” said Theodosiou, “so it will play a role in the organoleptic properties of the product.” Designing scaffolds that meet performance, safety and sensory criteria is complex and will likely require material blends to strike the right balance.

Researchers are testing various edible materials, including decellularized vegetables, fungi, plant proteins (e.g., soya, wheat, corn, pea, pumpkin) and polysaccharides like alginate and chitosan. In Theodosiou’s lab, blends of silk and plant proteins are being developed to produce mechanically robust scaffolds that can tolerate shear forces inside stirred bioreactors and have the surface functionality to promote cell adhesion. Her team is also working with edible mycelial strains, which naturally form particles and require minimal processing to become microcarriers.

Still, natural biomaterials come with variability. “Unlike synthetic ones, their performance can vary with geographical location and production conditions,” warned Theodosiou. “We also must consider their potential allergenicity and digestibility as they impact manufacturing reproducibility and the final product’s quality.”

Benchmarking natural meat properties

To create cultivated meat that resembles conventional meat, engineers need measurable benchmarks to compare it against traditionally produced counterparts. Theodosiou’s recent research addresses this by quantifying the mechanical and textural properties of traditional beef and plant-based burgers.⁷

“When we ask manufacturers to replicate the organoleptic properties of traditional meat, they need clear targets to test against, but such standards didn’t exist, so we started building them,” she explained.

By analysing what consumers perceive as high- and low-quality burgers, her team translated vague descriptors like "mushy" into specific mechanical values. These data points serve as a foundation for what cultivated meat should feel like, helping producers develop products that meet consumer expectations.

“Of course, personal food preferences vary, but having numerical ranges, similar to critical quality attributes in pharmaceuticals, aids product development,” Theodosiou noted. “Ultimately, the consumer will decide what tastes best, but having some texture and handling standards to work towards will ease product development.”

Policy and regulatory considerations

“Current EU regulations assess novel foods mainly for safety, not environmental impact,” said Tuomisto. “There's ongoing discussion about whether the approval process should include sustainability assessments like LCAs. But that raises equity concerns, as traditional livestock farming doesn’t face the same scrutiny despite its well-known environmental impacts.”

While LCAs aren’t currently mandatory, many cellular agriculture companies already use them as eco-design tools to guide product development. “Regulatory frameworks could support or encourage this without making them mandatory in ways that disadvantage new technologies,” added Tuomisto.

Equity and inclusion are also central to the policy conversation. “There’s a common fear that cellular agriculture might displace farmers, but this is somewhat unrealistic,” Tuomisto said. “Farmer numbers are already declining, and many younger generations are leaving the sector.”

Importantly, cellular agriculture still relies on agricultural inputs, so it could complement rather than compete with farming.

Future models could also include decentralized production, where farmers might adopt cellular agriculture technologies on-site.

“Inclusive dialogue with farming communities will be essential to ensure coexistence and collaboration between traditional and emerging food systems,” said Tuomisto.

Future of cellular agriculture

As global food demand increases and natural resources dwindle, cellular agriculture may shift from an alternative to a necessity.

“Cellular agriculture, including cultivated meat and precision fermentation, will become a necessity rather than an option,” said Theodosiou. “With a growing population, continued demand for meat and dairy and mounting environmental pressures, we must rely on biotechnology to create sustainable animal protein sources.”

Since the first lab-grown burger debuted in 2013, the field has progressed significantly. Products containing cultivated proteins are already on the market.

“Even though a whole cultivated beef steak is a bit further away from reaching the supermarket shelves, only this morning, I gave my dog a cruelty-free, reasonably priced treat, containing plants and 4% cultivated chicken,” Theodosiou shared.

Despite a recent dip in private investment, public research remains active and influential.

“Academic research is still going strong,” she adds. “This is the sector where most open-access innovation happens.”

Still, there are limitations. “I believe cellular agriculture will play a role, but not a dominant one,” said Tuomisto. “These technologies still depend on agricultural inputs, for example, glucose and amino acids, typically derived from crops. Only a few gas fermentation systems are truly independent of conventional agriculture.”

She emphasizes that conventional agriculture will still be needed for grains, vegetables and legumes.

Having worked in the field since 2008, Tuomisto cautions against viewing cellular agriculture as a short-term solution to climate change and food system sustainability, as it is often portrayed in the media.

“We can’t rely solely on these technologies in the near term,” she said. “Instead, we must simultaneously improve current agricultural practices and shift diets toward plant-based foods that are already available today.”