Unsustainable Science of Sustainability
World population is estimated to hit 11 billion by 2050, bringing with it a host of new ‘crises'. The global demand for proteins is growing but because of health and environmental concerns, more consumers are looking to reduce their consumption of animalorigin products.
If the UN and globalists are to be believed, we are sitting on an impending food crisis, unless innovations in agriculture saves the day and the planet in the process. For example, many in the food sector are looking for opportunities to expand the sources of alternative proteins that can be both environmentally sustainable and nutritionally sound. In terms of traditional meat/protein production, there are also other mitigating factors such as there being a limited amount of global arable land.
Cell-based food production has been explored as a potentially sustainable option to complement the conventional livestock agricultural system. Some of the cell-based food products are under various stages of development across the world, making it critical to objectively assess the benefits they might bring, as well as any risks associated with them - including food safety, quality concerns and potential hazards that could be introduced during cell sourcing/culturing, production, harvesting and processing.
Since the initial studies in the early 2000s, methodologies for cell-based food production have been well characterised and have moved from laboratories to production facilities. In 2013, the first beef burger produced through this technology was presented to the world. In December 2020, the first cell-based chicken nuggets were approved in Singapore. In November 2022, the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) completed its first pre-market consultation for human food (chicken) made using animal cell culture technology.
The voluntary pre-market consultation is not an approval process; however, it means that after analysing the data submitted by the company, the US FDA states that it has no further questions at this time about the safety conclusions. Presently, over 100 startups are developing various cell-based food products around the world. This commercial landscape is expanding very quickly, with many different types of products and commodities such as various meats, poultry, fish, aquatic products, dairy and eggs in the pipeline for future commercialisation.
One of the most important questions consumers would raise is food safety. In addition to safety, there are several other legitimate issues to consider, such as ethical issues, environmental considerations, animal welfare, consumer preference/acceptance, production cost, prices of the end products, as well as regulatory requirements such as approval mechanisms and labelling rules.
As cell-based food production may involve a set of relatively new technologies, techniques and/ or production steps, it is likely that many countries are currently thinking about and would consider implementing a regulatory process that addresses all the relevant issues, before such products become available in the marketplace.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), in collaboration with the World Health Organisation ( WHO), on March 28, 2023, released a document titled ‘Food safety aspects of cell-based food' to identify concrete ways to inform consumers and all other stakeholders about the food safety considerations for cell-based food products.
The document noted that solving the many challenges and hurdles that exist with cell-based foods such as high production costs, scale-up hurdles and gaps in fundamental knowledge will require a significant level of both technical and financial commitments from all stakeholders. While private funding and research efforts will further move forward the development, it is important to consider the skewed balance in terms of technical capacity and research opportunities between several advanced countries and low-and middle-income countries. The future of cell-based food depends on continuing to invest in R&D to understand whether the projected benefits of increased sustainability can be realised. One can only wait and observe to what extent cell-based foods will be accepted by consumers, considering the not-so-welcoming feedback received thus far.