Could cultivated pet food be the next big thing for sustainable dog care?

As cultivated pet food from Meatly is cleared for sale in the UK, Alex Mayers explores what’s driving this new sector, and how it relates to cultivated meat for humans.

17 July 2024

A dog with a treat
Photo: James Lacy

Europeans love animals. Almost half of us have welcomed a companion animal into our family, and in 2022, we spent almost €30 billion on pet food to keep our cats, dogs, rabbits, birds and fish happy and healthy.

Increasingly, we’re turning to premium pet food brands with higher meat content in search of optimum nutrition – but the trend towards higher quality options is having unintended consequences on our environment. So some companies are turning to human food innovations like cultivated meat to develop sustainable pet food options, with UK startup Meatly having just received clearance to sell its cultivated chicken for pets.

Is pet food sustainable?

There is increasing recognition that our current food system is contributing to significant environmental harms – with animal products like meat and dairy having an outsized impact. Animal agriculture causes 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to all the planes, trucks, cars, trains and ships on Earth.

The vast majority of meat is eaten by people – but it also makes up almost half of the 10.5 million tonnes of pet food sold in Europe each year, from a mix of meat and animal by-products like offal and blood. It’s easy to think that by-products would otherwise go to waste and are therefore sustainable – but they make an important contribution to meat industry profits, and the pet food industry faces competition from other sectors, such as biofuels and fertilisers, to utilise them.

Research suggests the global pet food industry has a climate impact similar to entire countries like the Philippines. The agricultural land used to produce meat and other pet food ingredients is twice as large as the UK. And as the trend towards premium brands continues, those impacts could grow. Premium pet food is 3.3 times worse for the climate than market-leading cat food and 2.3 times worse than market-leading dog food.

To prevent the worst impacts of climate change, end deforestation and restore natural habitats, we need to feed our pets more sustainably – but it’s right that pet owners prioritise nutrition, and many aren’t willing to ask animals like cats to give up their chicken and tuna. So innovative companies are developing cultivated meat specifically for cats and dogs.

What is cultivated pet food?

Cultivated meat aims to be indistinguishable from the chicken, pork, beef and seafood we eat today, but is made using fermentors instead of by farming animals. 

The process can be likened to growing plants from cuttings in a greenhouse, which provides warmth, fertile soil, water and nutrients. It involves taking a small sample of cells from an animal and growing them in a fermentor, similar to those used for brewing beer. This supports the same process that happens inside an animal by providing the warmth and the basic nutrients needed to produce meat – water, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals – in a sustainable way. The result is ground meat, which can be formed into a range of final products that are indistinguishable from conventionally produced meat.

Cultivated pet food is made using the same process – but formulated to meet the needs of cats and dogs.

Peer-reviewed research suggests cultivated meat could cause up to 92% less climate emissions, reduce air pollution by up to 94%, and use up to 90% less land than conventional beef. It has enormous potential to help satisfy the world’s growing appetite for meat, without adding further pressure on our environment, and could help to make pet food more sustainable. 

What about plant-based pet food?

Alongside cultivated pet food, plant-based and fermentation-made proteins have also started to enter the pet food market, offering complete nutrition with a fraction of the environmental impact. Research exploring the impact of complete plant-based pet food in dogs has suggested that, compared to conventional pet food, dogs fed plant-based diets tended to be healthier. Because they’ve evolved alongside humans, dogs are much better adapted to more varied diets than the wolves they descended from. This is not the case for all species, however, and creating plant-based foods for other pets like cats represents more of a challenge. 

In this context, cultivating meat and ingredients like fats and amino acids could also offer opportunities to enhance and improve plant-based pet food options, delivering kinder, more sustainable options that help maximise pet and planet health at the same time. 

How is cultivated pet food different from cultivated meat for humans?

While taste and nutrition will be essential for cultivated pet food’s success, cultivated meat for humans will need to meet much more stringent regulatory standards, and will require more advanced product development to impress Europe’s top chefs and food critics.

Cultivated meat has already been approved for sale in Singapore and the United States, demonstrating its potential to play a role in our future food system – but it needs to be approved by European regulators before it can be sold here. The approval process will include a thorough and evidence-based assessment of the safety and nutritional value of cultivated meat and is estimated to take at least 18 months.

Europe applies strict standards to pet food, too – but the process for bringing products to market is likely to be quicker, so cultivated cat and dog food will hit the shelves faster than cultivated sausages and steaks. Meatly plans to launch its first cultivated pet food samples by the end of this year.

The more scientists and business innovators we see working to develop cultivated meat, the faster the field will make progress – so the cultivated pet food industry can make a positive contribution to the wider sector. 

But if cultivated meat is to impress meat-loving humans, and if we’re to realise the full potential benefits – from enhancing food security, to supporting the expansion of regenerative farming – it’s essential that governments and the private sector invest in the research and infrastructure needed to make cultivated meat delicious, affordable and accessible for people across Europe. 

Author

Alex Mayers – photo by Barbara Evripidou/FirstAvenuePhotography.com

Alex Mayers Managing Director

Alex directs GFI Europe’s strategic planning and coordinates all areas of our work.