Next-gen businesses produce meat without animals and fish without a catch

‘Produce meat without animals.’ This is the loosely translated slogan of RespectFarms, a business that produces animal cells in a bioreactor. ‘But this is no lab-made food which we aim to produce in factories’, says RespectFarms’ Ralf Becks, wary of the low social acceptance of lab-grown meat. ‘In our philosophy, we partner with farmers, and the farmers of the future will keep cows as well as produce meat in a bioreactor.’

Environmentally friendly bioreactor

RespectFarms, founded in 2022, RESPECTfarms uses a bioreactor to grow muscle tissue from bovine stem cells and plant-based feed. The muscle tissue is then processed into meat using a 3D printer. The business is well-versed in the growing of animal cells and is now searching for financiers and farmers willing to participate. ‘We would prefer a demonstration factory near Wageningen,’ Becks says. He aims to have a facility capable of producing 100 tonnes of meat per annum.

RespectFarms’ cultured meat is far more environmentally friendly than regular meat, a study WUR conducted at the behest of RespectFarms shows. The bioreactor requires 95% less land and 78% less water and causes 93 % less environmental pollution, as well as emitting 92% fewer greenhouse gases. Moreover, the societal costs are 56% less than that of a cow in the field. This process could meet the globally increasing demand for meat while still achieving the climate goals, says Becks. There are two hurdles to be overcome in the upcoming years: the EU cultured meat legislation is not yet completed, and there are issues regarding how production can be scaled up to cut costs and make cultured meat competitive.

Stem cells to produce fatty acids

This method is suited for more than just replicating meat. It can also be used for fish. Upstream Foods, founded in 2022, grows fish cells. Mainly fat cells, as this is what causes the typical fishy flavour. Like RespectFarms, Upstream Foods uses stem cells. These cells are unspecialised and can reproduce and specialise into muscle or fat cells. The company currently has forty cell lines of salmon and trout but is still at the lab-culturing stage, says founder Kianti Figler during the workshop on Wageningen Campus.

Many consumers have given meat substitutes a go but often dislike the flavour of plant-based alternatives, says Figler. Animal fats largely determine the flavour. Hence, the start-up is working on stem cells capable of producing fatty acids in a bioreactor. She hopes to start a pilot factory within several years.

Cellular agriculture

Most cellular agriculture has yet to leave the laboratory. This also applies to the production of lactoprotein without cows. Wageningen researcher Etske Bijl works on precision fermentation within an NWO (Dutch Research Council) project. This process produces lactoprotein, called caseins, from micro-organisms. The goal is to produce cheese and yoghurt from these proteins without the help of a cow.

So far, vegan milk is not terribly successful, Bijl explains. This is due to the fact that plant-based proteins are not very suited to replace animal proteins as plant proteins are relatively small, while caseins are very big with a protein structure that stores minerals such as calcium. This makes Bijl’s casein structures a better alternative to cow milk than plant-based milk. She has already produced a mozzarella cheese using her proteins, albeit just a few milligrams. Here, too, upscaling is required.

Palm oil without palm

Cellular agriculture is still under development, but some businesses have already moved along. NoPalm Ingredients, for example, was founded in 2021 to produce palm oil without palm trees. The business is now able to manufacture palm oil from food waste using yeast. According to co-founder and researcher Jeroen Hugenholtz of NoPalm Ingredients, this process is successful, and the product can compete with regular palm oil. The big question is whether production can be scaled up to an industrial level.

Hugenholtz is working on realising a testing factory capable of producing 100,000 litres of oil. That is the scale required to play a role within the food chains. Such a facility needs machines to extract and purify oil at an unprecedented scale. Moreover, there are no facilities available in Europe that are capable of taking all the steps in the production process at this scale. Hence, Hugenholtz is currently conducting tests at various locations in the Netherlands, Germany, France and England to test large-scale production. ‘Very expensive and difficult to plan’, Hugenholtz clarified during the workshop on cellular agriculture on Wageningen Campus.