Cultivated meat and seafood watch: What's the latest in cultivated?

Cultivated meat, or cultured meat, is meat grown by culturing animal cells. It aims to produce a lower environmental impact than that of animal agriculture, as well as a more authentic taste than plant-based meat. 

We've seen a range of cultivated meat products, to the normal such as chicken, to the slightly unconventional such as eels, to the wildly unorthodox such as mammoth. Here, we bring you the latest developments in cultivated meat. 

19 August 2024: ‘We're going to work with meat companies, not compete with them’: Meatable on how cultivated meat can help farmers​​

Cultivated meat is often thought of as a rival to meat, but Meatable sees it differently. According to new CEO Jeff 'Trip' Tripician, cultivated meat can be used as a 'raw material' for farmers to help them deal with a drastic increase in meat demand - a predicted 70% increase by 2050. 

6 August 2024: Cultivated meat on a farm? Putting farmers at the centre of a new technology​​

While cultivated meat is traditionally associated with large-scale factory production, two start-ups are planning to provide the technology to farmers, so that it can be made on a farm. These start-ups aim to put farmers back at the centre of the supply chain.

1 August 2024: Finally, an approval application for cultivated meat submitted in the EU​​

The wait is over! French cultivated meat company Gourmey have now submitted an approval application to the EU, alongside applications to Switzerland, Singapore, the US and the UK. The company makes cultivated foie gras. The EU application is often seen as a gold standard for novel food applications around the world, being highly stringent. 

29 July 2024: Is cultivated meat a concern or an opportunity for farmers?​​

For farmers, cultivated meat, with its sometimes-stated ambition to replace traditional meat, can create concern. A recent report from the Royal Agricultural University showed that despite this concern, farmers are open to opportunities posed by the cultivated meat sector. 

17 July 2024: Meatly gets UK approval for use of cultivated meat in pet food​​

The first market approval in the UK has not been for human meat, but pet food. Using cells from a chicken egg to create cultivated chicken meat, the UK start-up has developed the world's first cultivated pet food. The company, which has been collaborating with pet food manufacturers, plans to launch samples of its first commercially available pet food this year, and produce at industrial volumes within the next three years.

10 June 2024: French cultivated meat start-up seeks approval in UK, rather than EU​​

After applying for regulatory approval in Singapore, French cultivated chicken start-up Vital Meat decided to apply for UK approval rather than EU. While the approval processes are similar, the company chose the UK over the EU because of UK consumers' 'pragmatism and environmental consciousness' as well as their 'receptivness to innovation.'

4 June 2024: Can cultivated cocoa solve the chocolate crisis? ‘It’s like cultivating meat, but simpler’​​

Along with cultivated meat and fish, cocoa can be cultivated as well. Israeli start-up Kokomodo developing cultivated cocoa, so that cocoa beans can be available 'all the year round.' Cocoa cells are 'simpler' to grow than meat, the start-up suggested, and require less complex media. The start-up is choosing to cultivate cocoa rather than producing a cocoa alternative because of its 'profound passion' for 'real cacao.' 

20 May 2024: How 'buttery' cultivated bluefin tuna is made, and served raw​​

Demand for bluefin tuna outweighs supply, so Israeli start-up Wanda Fish are aiming to meet this supply. The business has developed a cultivated bluefin tuna product that, it claims, has achieved the same marbling as the real thing. The product, the start-up claims, is also rich in protein and omega-3 fatty acids.

24 April 2024: The ‘next generation’ of cultivated seafood? Affordable species from trout to seabass​​

Israeli cultivated fish start-up Sea2Cell aims to make cheaper versions of cultivated seafood. They have targeted affordable fish - the rainbow trout, gilthead seabream and seabass - to cultivate. "They're fish that people like," said the company's founder. In order to cut costs, the start-up is targeting one of the costliest parts of the process - growth factors - by using cells that can themselves produce growth factors, doing away with the need to buy them. 

4 April 2024: Cultivated quail: Yet another lab-grown meat greenlit outside of EU​​

Back in April, another cultivated meat product was regulatorily approved outside the EU, this time in Singapore. The product, cultivated quail, was made by Australian start-up Vow, a company previously best known for making cultivated mammoth meatballs. The approval is not Singapore's first nor even its second, but its third. 

22 February 2024: The future of Italy’s cultivated meat ban​​

Following on from Italy's attempt to ban cultivated meat in 2023, the Italian government hit a hurdle in 2024 in fully implementing it. It did not complete a TRIS procedure, a procedure through which any EU member state that wishes to state an objection to a new law can do. In fact, Italy had submitted a TRIS procedure but had not waited until its completion before the ban went ahead. 

31 January 2024: To grow or not to grow: Bovine cells engineered to produce their own growth factors in cultivated meat production​​

In a study earlier this year, researchers discovered that edited bovine cells can produce their own growth factors. This reduces the need for highly costly growth factors, one of the main barriers to full upscaling of cultivated meat. 

16 January 2024: Regulatory greenlight for cultivated beef leaves EU sector ‘hopeful’​​

The start-up Aleph Farms became the first company to achieve cultivated meat approval in Israel, and the first company worldwide to get approval for a cultivated beef (and a non-chicken) product. At the time, many key European stakeholders expressed hope that this would make an eventual European approval more likely, with one saying that “the EU must develop a coherent strategy to support the sustainable protein sector and ensure regulatory processes are clear, in order to reap the benefits of cultivated meat.”

25 January 2024: Is cultivated meat a threat to farming? EU countries clash over cellular agriculture’s future​​

How much does the rise of cultivated meat threaten European farmers? A note to the European Council earlier this year suggested that cultivated meat was at odds with the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as it represents a 'threat' to primary farm-based approaches, and questioned whether current novel foods regulation provides a 'suitable and comprehensive frame' to assess these products' potential risks. 

22 January 2024: Cultivated eel that ‘melts in your mouth’? How Forsea mimics ‘tender, succulent’ texture of fish and seafood​​

You've heard of cultivated meat, but have you heard of cultivated eels? Israeli start-up Forsea Foods is continuing the growing trend of cultivated seafood with its eels, which aim to mimic the fatty, tender taste of the product. Eels, traditionally eaten in London's pie and mash shops, are being bought to the cultivated space. The company really does have one foot in the past, one foot in the future. 

3 January 2024: UK Government backs alternative proteins and pledges to create 'regulatory sandboxes'​​

In early 2024, the UK government announced that it would back the alternative protein sector, which includes cultivated meat. One area that needed to be developed, according to the Good Food Institute's Linus Pardoe, was the lack of infrastructure for cultivated meat. The government's backing, he told FoodNavigator, could address this.

7 December 2023: What’s the Italian Government’s beef with cultivated meat?​​

When Italy banned cultivated meat, it received significant criticism from industry. According to Aurora Russi, Head of Press and Culture at the Italian Embassy in London, the reason behind the ban was to protect Italy's food system, and the historical relationship between Italians and the land.

“Such production methods risk erasing our traditional food system, proposing a production model that does not align with what we know and what has made us strong and competitive in this sector," she told us.

1 December 2023: ‘Essentially real meat, just grown differently’: Ivy Farm’s CSO on cultivated meat production and commercialisation​​

Dr. Harsh Amin, CSO of UK cultivated meat company Ivy Farm, spoke to FoodNavigator about the costs of production, the complexities of development, and the path to commercialisation. 

21 November 2023: Italian gov't bans cultivated meat, restricts plant-based meat labelling​​

In 2023, the Italian government banned the production of cultivated meat, as well as the use of 'meaty' labels on plant-based meat products. While the legislation was passed, according to the government, to protect Italy's food culture, it received harsh criticism from industry