A steak grown in the lab made by Aleph Farms. Is it a pharmaceutical product or a food product?
Lab-grown meat companies, such as US-based Mission Barns and Israel-based Aleph Farms (including investor Leonardo Dicaprio), are producing cultured meat from animal cells. Marketing the process as more environmentally friendly than beef due to its predicted lower land, water, and greenhouse gas needs compared to cattle raising.
However, in a preprint article, researchers at the University of California, Davis, found that lab-grown or “cultivated” meat’s environmental impact is likely to be significantly higher than retail beef based on current and near-term production methods.
The researchers conducted a lifecycle assessment comparing the energy and greenhouse gases emitted in all production stages with that of beef. One of the current challenges with lab-grown meat is the use of highly refined growth media, similar to the biotechnology used for pharmaceuticals. This raises the question of whether cultured meat production is a pharmaceutical or food product.
Lead author and doctoral graduate Derrick Risner of UC Davis Department of Food Science and Technology said, “If companies are purifying growth media to pharmaceutical levels, it uses more resources and increases global warming potential. If this product continues to be produced using the ‘pharma’ approach, it’s going to be worse for the environment and more expensive than conventional beef production.”
The study found that the global warming potential of lab-based meat using these purified media is four to 25 times greater than the average for retail beef. One goal is to eventually create lab-grown meat using primarily food-grade ingredients or cultures without the use of expensive and energy-intensive pharmaceutical grade ingredients and processes. This more environmentally competitive method could reduce cultured meat’s global warming potential by up to 80% compared to conventional beef production.
Associate professor Edward Spang from the Department of Food Science and Technology at UC Davis mentioned that even the most efficient beef production systems reviewed in the study outperform cultured meat across all scenarios. This suggests that investments in advancing climate-friendly beef production may yield greater emission reductions more quickly than investments in cultured meat.
Risner concluded that even if lab-based meat doesn’t result in a more climate-friendly burger, valuable science can be learned from the endeavor and highlighted the importance of not scaling up too quickly and causing harm to the environment.
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