Cultivated meat

Compared with conventional meat production, cultivated meat has the potential to be far less resource-intensive, decreasing methane emissions, deforestation, biodiversity loss, water use, water pollution, antibiotic resistance, and foodborne illnesses.

A peer-reviewed study by CE Delft – the first ever to be based on data from cultivated meat companies – found that, compared with farming animals, cultivating meat from cells could:

• Cut the climate impact of meat by up to 92%.
• Reduce air pollution by up to 94%.
• Use up to 90% less land.

This is compared to an ambitious scenario for conventional animal agriculture in 2030 – where farmers manage to cut the carbon footprint of meat by 15% (for beef), 26% (for pork) and 53% (for chicken). Compared with current average environmental impacts, the benefits of cultivated meat are even greater. And if we use the freed-up land for rewilding or carbon sequestration, the positive climate impacts could be greater still.

Cultivated meat is also made in clean environments without animals or exposure to faecal pathogens, and no antibiotics are needed – so these foods help to reduce the risk of zoonotic diseases, prevent foodborne illnesses, and preserve life-saving antibiotics for human medicine.

Cultivated meat will expand the options available to consumers, providing the meat so many people desire, just produced in a more sustainable, secure and just way.

Cultivating meat is similar 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 animal fat or ground meat, which can be mixed with plant-based ingredients to make final products that are indistinguishable from conventionally produced meat.

The first cultivated products to become widely available in Europe are likely to be ingredients like cultivated fat, which can enhance the flavour of plant-based meat, or products containing small quantities of cultivated meat cells. 

Since mid-2023, several companies have submitted applications to sell cultivated meat and ingredients in the EU, Switzerland and the UK. Regulators are now undertaking thorough and evidence-based assessments of the safety and nutritional value of these products, and the approval processes are expected to take at least 18 months from submission, though in practice they can take several years.

Cultivated meat products have already been approved for sale in Singapore and the United States, so the fact that it has passed rigorous approval processes in those countries suggests it can play a role in a safe and sustainable future for Europe’s food system. However, cultivated meat remains at an early stage in its development, and still requires significant investment from governments into research and infrastructure to support product development and scale-up before products with cultivated ingredients become widely available, and before 100% cultivated meat products become reality.

GFI Europe is working with the EU and national governments to ensure that the regulatory approval process for cultivated meat is robust, clear, and evidence-based.