Meat producers are paying attention now that a cultured meat company has passed a key regulatory hurdle.
Upside Foods became the first company to receive a “no questions” letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Despite some headlines, it has not received approval for any products but the FDA said it has no qualms about the Upside Foods cultured chicken manufacturing process.
Cultured meat is not a meat substitute like some of the plant-protein-based products that have recently hit the market. It is made of animal muscle cells grown in a lab.
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The process first made headlines in 2013, when a hamburger made from lab-grown animal cells was announced with much fanfare. But with a price tag of more than US$250,000, it wasn’t an option likely to show up on fast-food menus.
This latest announcement may indicate that manufacturing costs are significantly lower, and many are saying the meat industry should pay attention.
In a recent op-ed in the Globe and Mail, Sylvain Charlebois, professor of food distribution and policy and director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, said chicken farmers could face a serious challenge in coming years.
“They potentially face a competitor with cost advantages and lower disease risks, which could boast of its humane methods and sustainability,” he wrote.
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Those cost advantages are one place where traditional meat producers have the upper hand – for now.
A December 2020 paper in the academic journal Foods provided a techno-economic assessment that examined the costs of producing cultured meat at an industrial scale. At the time of that study, the baseline cost for producing a pound of cultured beef was still about $400,000 per kilogram, based on 2019 manufacturing and labour costs.
With advances in technology, the cost could be lowered to around $50,000 per kilogram, the paper said, with much work remaining to make it competitive.
It didn’t predict when cost competitiveness would arrive, but another report from CE Delft, published in November 2021, estimated price parity could be achieved by 2030.
Hard to assess
The arrival of cultured meat in grocery stores may seem inevitable but the many unknowns make it difficult for the meat industry to react.
The head of public and government relations for ExcelDor, which now operates as Granny’s Poultry in Manitoba, said the firm wouldn’t comment on the FDA’s ruling because the product is not yet available to consumers.
“However, as a food processor, we are following developments of this file, and will pay attention to how governments will respond to potential impact on laws and regulations governing our industry, in particular regarding labelling,” it said.
Manitoba Chicken Producers passed the question to its national counterpart. Yves Ruel, associate executive director at Chicken Farmers of Canada, said the group has no position on cultured meats.
“We haven’t discussed it with our board. There are still so many unknowns,” said Ruel, noting the big question is consumer perception.
“Is there going to be acceptance? Because I see both reactions, some saying, ‘wow, this is the future, and it has great potential,’ and others saying, ‘ooh, that’s not the future that I want.’”
Cam Dahl, general manager of Manitoba Pork, had more to say on the subject.
“I think we will see attempts to bring this to market, but what kind of market will there be?”
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Dahl sees price as a major hurdle for the nascent industry.
“Of course, price is going to be a really key driver,” he said. “For those who might be interested in cultured meat, how much more are they willing to pay for it, and for how long?”
Like Ruel, Dahl wonders about consumer acceptance.
“For the foreseeable future, I would say that this is something that will remain a niche, both because of consumer preferences around things that come to you naturally, as well as price,” he said.
Work necessary
However, Dahl says he welcomes this type of research.
“We will need to feed nine billion people in the not-so-distant future, so I think research into food technology is a good thing and should be encouraged,” he said.
“World agriculture is going to need to produce a lot of food and modern Canadian agriculture, and modern Manitoba agriculture, is going to continue to play a growing role in that. I don’t see that changing.”
According to Charlebois, consumer acceptance may be closer than many think. In his Globe and Mail piece, he points to a recent survey by his lab that indicated 27 per cent of Canadians would try lab-grown food.
That percentage almost triples for millennials and other younger generations because they see these proteins as more sustainable and more humane, he wrote.
As far as look, taste and texture go, it seems Upside Foods is doing something right. Its marketing photos make the product look appetizing.
In a January Bloomberg.com article about Upside’s push for regulatory approval, author Ashley Vance said a sample of the company’s grilled chicken breast came close to the real thing. “When I tried an Upside chicken breast last year, it smelled and looked exactly like grilled chicken. It tasted like it, too, though the texture was a bit softer and less juicy,” she wrote at the time.
