The age of 8 billion people brings, how long will it be before "artificial meat" comes to the table?

The United Nations has announced that the world's population will reach 8 billion on November 15, 2022. This is the proof of breakthroughs and improvements in the fields of nutrition, public health and environmental health, but also reflects the new height of human industrial and agricultural civilization, because the increase of population and food are closely related, and meat is always the most simple and basic dietary needs of human beings.

 

 

 

Scientists expect the world's population to reach 9.6 billion by 2050. If humans continue to eat meat as they do now, they will consume excessive amounts of natural resources such as land and water, while also contributing to climate change and species extinction. In recent years, all walks of life have realized the impact of the food industry on the future of the earth's environment, therefore, more environmentally friendly artificial meat, artificial milk, artificial shrimp, artificial fish, artificial eggs have been rapid development, blowing an "artificial" wind in the world.

 

As the world's largest importer of beef, China relies on imports for about 70 percent of its beef. Without sustainable alternative animal meat solutions, Chinese people may not be able to eat beef in the near future.

 

In 1931, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill mused that, for reasons of animal welfare and productivity, "We should not raise a whole chicken in order to eat breast or wing, but should grow these tissues separately in a suitable medium." Nearly a century later, Churchill's slightly sci-fi vision has become a reality. In March 2019, at the 2019 Annual conference of the Japanese Society of Agricultural and Non-Agricultural Chemistry, the University of Tokyo in Japan and Nissin Foods jointly released the world's first artificial steak meat with a structure similar to real beef.

 

In July 2021, the Singapore Food Authority (SFA) reviewed cell-cultured meat as a CDMO. By obtaining a license, you can be commissioned to produce cell-cultured meat for commercial sale. This means that Singapore's veteran life science machine manufacturer Esco Life Sciences Group has been able to obtain a license from the authorities as a commissioned manufacturing and development organization for cell-cultured meat, which is said to be the first such case in the world. In China, according to China News Weekly, "there are currently only three cell culture meat companies, and the results are still in the laboratory research stage." Avant Meats of Hong Kong, cell cultured fish; Nanjing Zhouzi Future Food Technology Co., Ltd. was established with the technology developed by Zhou Guanghong, professor of Nanjing Agricultural University and academician of International Academy of Food Sciences. And CellX, a young company founded in July 2020." Just in June 2022, Zhou developed China's first cell culture "pork belly", and at the new product launch site, using the cell meat to cook a fried pork with green pepper, according to tasters, the pork belly is very chewy.

 

What kind of meat is artificial meat? The first is soy protein cultivation. Mainly made of soy protein, soy protein Meat is actually a soybean product that mimics the shape, color and taste of meat, the representative company Beyond Meat. There are differences between plant meat and Chinese people's eating habits, and products need to give consumers strong reasons to buy in various dimensions such as taste, packaging, marketing and price.

 

The second is animal stem cell cultivation. Mosa Meat, a leading company, harvests muscle tissue from live cattle and dissects, segments and cultures muscle cells to increase their surface area so that one muscle cell can grow a trillion muscle cells. This is also called "laboratory meat", "cultured meat", "farmed meat". Simply put, "you can produce meat from cows, pigs, chickens, ducks and geese without raising them."

 

Cell culture meat is closer to real meat products in terms of nutrition, taste and flavor, and is the main research and development direction of artificial meat in the future. However, unlike the relatively mature processing technology and the commercial production of plant meat, there are still many challenges in the ethical and technical aspects of cell culture meat, especially in terms of low-cost acquisition of large-scale muscle cells and foodization. At present, 99% of the artificial meat on the market is plant meat, and cell culture meat is still in the lab.

 

At present, artificial meat is not harmful to the human body. Nowadays, artificial meat processing technology has been greatly developed, generally as long as all aspects of the production meet the norms of food safety, there is no problem in safety, it is safe to eat. And artificial meat in the process of cooking and heating, you can get the perfect flavor of the original meat, from the theoretical analysis, artificial meat and traditional meat, there may be some differences in taste.

 

In terms of food nutrition, traditional meat nutrition is mainly reflected in protein and fat, protein and its rich amino acids are essential nutrients for human nutrition. The main nutrients in "artificial meat", protein, minerals, vitamins, amino acids and other components are available, and can achieve zero cholesterol, zero hormones, zero trans fatty acids, zero antibiotics, can greatly reduce the possibility of people getting obesity.

 

According to the "2021 China Plant Meat Industry Insight White Paper" (hereinafter referred to as the white paper) statistics, from December 2019 to December 2020, there were as many as 21 domestic investment events for plant-based companies, an increase of 500%. However, starting in 2021, capital gradually stalled, and there were only four investment events in A year, and most of them were Series A financing. Artificial meat is still very niche in China, and market awareness is still far from reaching the level of mass consumer goods. "Not delicious" and "expensive to sell" so that consumers will not buy again after tasting fresh.

 

Even if the current market is cold, some research institutions and industry people are still optimistic about the prospects of artificial meat. China's plant-based meat market will reach $13 billion by 2025 and is expected to account for half of the global market, the white paper said. The Foresight Industry Research Institute even predicts that China's demand for plant-based meat will increase by 200% in the next five years. China's National Development and Reform Commission mentioned in the "14th Five-Year Plan" bioeconomic development Plan that the orderly development of whole-genome selection, systems biology, synthetic biology, artificial intelligence and other biological breeding technologies, the development of synthetic biology technology, and the exploration and development of new foods such as "artificial protein".

 

According to BCG and Blue Horizon Corporation, by 2035, one-tenth of the meat, eggs, dairy and seafood consumed globally will be made from alternative proteins. According to the report, by 2035, with technological innovation and policy support, the growth rate of the alternative protein market is likely to increase to 22%, and the alternative protein market share will increase from 2% in 2020 to 11%. All in all, artificial meat is unlikely to solve some of the existing problems, whether it is the change of technology or the change of market cognition, it is not overnight, it is foreseeable that in the near future, artificial food technology will be the mainstream of the development of catering technology.