K A S H R U T . C O M_©

August 29, 2024 from Jerusalem Post:

"Israeli scientists are revolutionizing the future of food with groundbreaking advancements in cultivated meat production. Discover how new technology makes this initiative affordable.

"As global demand for animal protein is expected to double by 2050, cellular agriculture offers a solution to meet this demand, especially as resource-intensive livestock production reaches its peak capacity. Despite recent approvals by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for cultivated meat production, large-scale production of cultivated meat has not yet become a reality. Previous techno-economic analyses raised a variety of economic problems, including high costs of factories and raw materials and casting doubt about the viability of cultivated meat production.

"Prof. Yaakov Nahmias, founder of a company called Believer Meats, and a multidisciplinary team at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) have now divulged their study just published in the prestigious journal Nature Food under the title 'Continuous manufacturing of cultivated meat: empirical economic analysis.'

"The research is the first proof of the potential of cost-efficient manufacturing of cultivated meat and the first empirical economic analysis based on solid data. The project brought together engineers, biologists, and chemists at HU and Believer Meats, which is currently building the world’s first large-scale industrial production facility for cultivated chicken.

"he use of tangential flow filtration (TFF) for the continuous manufacturing of cultivated meat makes possible the expansion of the biomass to 130 billion cells per liter, achieving yields of 43% weight per volume. The process was carried out continuously over 20 days, enabling daily biomass harvests.

"In addition, the new culture medium is free of animal components and is priced at just $0.63 per liter, so the continuous manufacturing method could significantly minimize the cost and complexity of cultivated meat production, potentially bringing it closer to everyday consumers.

"Using empirical data, the team conducted a techno-economic analysis of a hypothetical 50,000-liter production facility. The analysis showed that the cost of production of cultivated chicken could theoretically be cut to only $6.20 per pound, aligning with the price of organic chicken."