TH: Demand for the alternative proteins market has been on the rise. What are they?
EA: The four types of alt-proteins are plant-based proteins such as soy, peas, lentils and other legumes. These are found in traditional meat analogues as well as newer ones. The traditional plant-based proteins are tofu and tempeh. Companies like Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods make soy and pea protein meat analogues that mimic animal meat using newer processing techniques. For instance, the Impossible Burger is mostly soy concentrate but it contains coconut oil and other oils, potato protein and what is known as soy heme or leghemoglobin, a molecule produced via genetically engineered yeast to make it look like the burger is bleeding.
The second category is fermentation-derived proteins using microorganisms like yeast, fungi and bacteria using fermentation processes. For example, Qorn uses fungal biomass to make its high protein product. Other products, like Perfect Day’s dairy products, make milk without cows by isolating the genes for whey protein or casein and inserting them into yeast or fungi which are then grown in large fermentation tanks using precision fermentation.
The third type is cell-based or cultivated meat proteins. These use animal cells from a live animal, which are then grown into a bioreactor where cells are allowed to proliferate, and eventually differentiate into muscle cells. As the muscle cells multiply, they form a bigger piece of muscle or muscle tissue, which are then shaped into burgers or nuggets. They are processed for flavour and texture, etc. Companies, like Eat Just, are selling cultivated chicken in Singapore through its GOOD Meat division. These products are not available in Canada yet.
Finally, the fourth type is insect-based proteins, which are sourced from insects like crickets, grasshoppers or mealworms. These are processed into powder form and used like flours.
TH: How big a market might this become?
EA: It’s not clear how the market will go. The pandemic played a key role in boosting the sale of plant-based meats because there were supply chain disruptions with conventional meat. In addition, there was a swine flu and an avian flu epidemic just before 2019, and there were fears of animal-borne diseases. That’s when sales of Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods surged, as consumers started including plant-based meats in their diet. However, since then, sales of plant-based meats have dropped or have plateaued in some regions. Post-pandemic consumption of plant-based meats hasn’t translated in people switching completely from traditional meat.
However, the market is expected to grow. Market growth predictions include that the global market for alt-protein was worth approximately $15 billion USD in 2023 and is expected to continue growing at about a rate of eight per cent a year until 2030. This is mostly driven by plant-based meats and beverages (soy milk, almond milk, etc.).
The numbers will depend on the industry’s ability to make products that are affordable and tasty. There are also questions about the fact that plant-based meats are ultra-processed and may not be healthy choices: high salt and fat contents plus all kinds of unknown products—such as genetically engineered soy, industrially grown crops, and molecules like leghemoglobin, which haven’t been extensively studies in terms of long-term health impacts.
However, the demand for conventional meat is also increasing and remains high. Countries in the global south, like China and India, are where demand is the highest, due to rising incomes and changing diets. Highest demand is for pork and chicken, then beef. I’ve seen predictions of a 50 per cent increase in the global demand for meat by 2050. It’s usually tied to population growth, which is expected to reach 9.7 billion.
TH: A lot of this new market focuses on reducing agriculture’s environmental impacts. But it’s also highly contentious. Tell us why?
EA: Conventional or industrial agriculture is a major contributor to greenhouse gases—it’s estimated between 20-30 per cent. Of that share, livestock production is the highest source of greenhouse gas emissions, mostly through the production of methane.
However, the production of plant-based protein requires intensive agricultural practices that have a substantial environmental footprint. This means growing large-scale monoculture crops using chemical inputs (fertilizers and pesticides), which may include genetically modified varieties of soy or corn as well as new gene edited crops. This might offset any environmental benefit.
The process of producing lab-grown meat is energy intensive in terms of electricity, water, etc. For instance, the growth medium used to cultivate the cells into muscle tissue requires a lot of ingredients sourced from conventional or industrial agriculture: either plant derived or even animal derived. For companies who claim to be using animal-free serum, the alternatives come from plants like soy or corn.
The fact that major meat producers and agribusiness companies are investing in the alt-protein business is not simply the result of their concern for environmental sustainability and for animal ethics. It is based on a desire to integrate alt-protein into their existing industrial supply chains and it is seen as an opportunity to capture market-segment. They have invested in alt-protein companies or have created their own alt-protein companies (like Tyson, JBS, Cargill and ADM -Archer Daniels Midland). These companies control the plant supply chain for soy and corn. They also operate large-scale processing plants that supply the alt-protein industry. Cargill and ADM control the soybean market as a major source for the alt-protein market. So, essentially, they control a significant share of the key crops used in alt-proteins and stand to profit from this industry.
TH: Cellular agriculture—lab meat—is the latest addition to the future of food production. Can you tell us about this new form of alternative proteins, “fake meat”? How do they produce it?
EA: Stem cells from the muscle of a live animal are biopsied or in some cases cell lines from animals are used to grow muscle cells in a bioreactor. As the cells grow and divide, a scaffold or support matrix is used to provide a three-dimensional structure that reproduces the natural environment inside the body of the animal for muscle tissue development. The cells are allowed to differentiate into muscle cells and other cell types necessary for recreating the texture of meat. Once the cells have grown and matured into muscle cells, they are harvested from the bioreactor and processed or assembled into ‘meat’ to mimic the taste and feel of traditional meat.
Harvesting may involve removing the scaffolding material if it is not made from food-grade edible material. Lab-grown or cell-based meat has been produced from beef, chicken, pork, duck etc. as well as seafood and fish. Most of the meat produced is either in the form of beef burgers, animal sausages or chicken nuggets although one company, Aleph Meats, is working to produce what it calls steak, which involves shaping the final product to replicate the characteristics of a steak. The U.S.-based company Wildtype produces sushi-grade cultivated salmon.
TH: What technical hurdles need to be overcome before this form of “meat” will hit Canadian markets?
EA: There are several hurdles: one is linked to the production cost, a second to the other to the technical difficulties of scaling up production to produce industrial quantities of meat, a third is linked to regulatory and safety issues.
1) The cost of production boils down to bringing down the cost of the culture or growth medium. As it stands, culture medium is the most expensive aspect of the process, as it contains nutrient-rich ingredients such as cell growth factors, amino acids, vitamins and mineral, sugars, fats, etc. to optimize cell growth and enable their differentiation into different cell types. While some of these ingredients can be cheaply sourced, the need for large quantities of high-purity ingredients drives the cost. Growth factors tend to be derived from animal sources and are very costly to produce, as they are made using genetic engineering. This makes the cost of cell-based meat prohibitively high compared to conventional meat. To be affordable and cost effective, huge quantities of meat would have to be sold. Just to put things into perspective, it’s estimated that in 2024, a pound of cultivated burger meat costs around $23 Cdn a pound while conventional beef is currently priced between $3.50 to $6 Cdn per pound.
2) Scaling up production of growth media to meet market demand is expensive and technically difficult. Large-scale bioreactors that can range from 1,000 to 10,000 litres or more will be used for commercial manufacture. Some mention sizes of 200,000 litres in volume to feed people in an affordable way. Ensuring reliable and consistent batches of product is another problem. Research is underway to study how to maintain optimal conditions for cell growth from laboratory to pilot stage, to commercial-scale levels. This includes optimizing the formulation of the cell growth medium. Some companies are investigating continuous cultivation, which means that instead of starting over with new cells for each production run, they keep the cells growing and keep adding fresh nutrients and removing waste without having to start a new batch every time.
3) Other technical hurdles involve regulatory and safety challenges. Several cell-based meat manufacturing facilities have been built in the U.S. (Upside Foods), in Europe (Mosa Meats), in Singapore (Eat Just) and in Israel (Future Meat, SuperMeat and Aleph). Although some countries like the U.S., Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and the UK (not for human consumption only for pets) have approved cultivated meat, one company has applied for regulatory clearance in the European Union. There have been no pre-market approvals in Canada, as regulatory frameworks and clear guidelines have not yet been established.
This means that the future of cultivated meat is likely in the form of blended meats: i.e. plant-based mixed with cell-based.
TH: In terms of animal welfare, is it ethical?
EA: Because this meat is not a reality, it’s hard to say if fewer animals will suffer or be harmed when this product reaches the market. There are many animal ingredients that go into its production. Some companies still rely on fetal bovine serum for growing cells. It is drawn from the fetuses of pregnant cows in the slaughterhouse. It is the most popular product for growing cells in vitro, as it provides a rich culture environment for cell development. Other companies have developed animal-free growth medium. However, many animal-derived components—like collagen, trypsin, albumin—are still used. Cellular growth factors and enzymes originating from animals are produced and scaled up using recombinant DNA technology. So, it’s not completely slaughter-free or ethical meat.
If animal welfare is a primary concern, we could ask ourselves why producing synthetic meat might be an answer to the animal ethics problem. Such technologically intensive and extremely expensive ways of producing animal products without animals might divert attention from efforts and resources to actually end animal agriculture, if that is the desired outcome. It also fails to encourage shifts towards plant-based diets, food sovereignty and sustainable farming practices. Eating cell-based meat not only commits us to a technological fix for solving ethical issues such as animal cruelty or agriculture’s climate problem, but its promoters claim to understand how to make meat “better” than the animals themselves. It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that lab-grown meat is just another technologically intensive, market-driven solution that aims to maintain the status quo. It allows meat eaters to continue eating meat without making fundamental changes to their habits or diets, reinforcing the meat paradigm and avoiding engagement with the deeper moral implications of killing animals for food.
TH: Would it contribute to fewer greenhouse gas emissions in our race to deal with climate change?
EA: There are contradictory studies that claim it can contribute to fewer greenhouse gas emissions, others that claim it may be worse than animal agriculture because it might produce higher concentrations of methane. There is no real data to work from, making these studies difficult to assess.
TH: What are the regulatory implications to ensure public safety and well-being?
EH: Product testing first and foremost: we have never eaten lab-grown meat before, it is new to the human diet. Although industry promoters like to say that this meat is real meat or that it is the same or better than conventional meat, it is not produced the same way. In my view it is not the same and should not be considered as such. Conventional meat shouldn’t be used as a basis to assess the safety of cultivated meat. What are its long-term health effects? Does it cause allergies? Is it safe to eat? What happens when you cook the product? It’s important to ensure the safety testing and regulatory oversight of the production process and the final product over time. This includes long-term testing of the cell lines, ingredients, certifying their source and ensuring that products are free of pathogens, contaminants and toxins. Insisting on food grade components.
TH: Do you think lab meat will become a mainstay on Canadian tables?
EA: It’s unlikely that it will become a mainstay of Canadian diets. Beyond the lack of supply and uncertainty regarding the commercial future of this product, there are many cultural reasons why some meat eaters will not switch to this product and will continue to eat animals. Some people might perceive the product as unnatural or synthetic, the opposite of a food deeply anchored in local or traditional cultural and culinary practices. Cell-based meat is the antithesis of a vision of agriculture that links people, farmers and animals in local foodways. Consumer acceptance is a challenge for this industry. The industry has to convince people their product is edible and that it is meat.
If people want to get away from eating animals or meat, they don’t need to wait for cell-based meat to arrive on supermarket shelves. They can adapt their diet to veganism or vegetarianism tomorrow. If it becomes the future, its lack of affordability and its highly technologized process will not make it universally accessible. I don’t think growing meat in bioreactors will rectify the structural inequalities that exist in the global food system. If anything, it might reinforce them.
