Cultivated meat is big business. Since 2013, investors have provided more than $3.1 billion in funding to the emerging industry. In 2023, the USDA permitted two companies to produce and sell cultivated chicken, making the US the second country in the world to approve cultivated meat products.

Cultivated meat is lab-grown meat grown from animal cells rather than on a live animal (yes, this is possible). It can be grown from chicken cells, cow cells, pig cells, and so on. While cultivated meat is considered part of the alternative protein movement, it's more of an alternative to traditional livestock farming than a plant-based product. It is, after all, meat.

Transforming traditional livestock farming is critical work. The profoundly flawed industrial system is rife with animal rights abuses, dangerous labor conditions and staggering environmental impacts. For our own wellbeing and for the planet, something has to change. How does cultivated meat measure up as a potential solution? 

At this point, it's tough to tell.

Transparency = trust

So far, practical and economic limitations have impacted cultivated meat's potential as a replacement for livestock farming (more on that in a moment), and some companies are turning to GMOs for possible workarounds. 

Part of the trouble is how mammalian tissue behaves, says the cofounder of the Dutch biotech company, Meatable. "If you take a cell from animal muscle, it has all kinds of behaviors that don’t have anything to do with how it tastes, but which make it really expensive and complicated to grow." Genetic engineering and synthetic biology might be the fastest reliable ways to solve those problems. 

Due to intense competition within the cultivated meat industry, production methods are generally closely held corporate secrets. The Non-GMO Project's dedicated research team has been monitoring the progress of several cultivated meat products destined for the commercial market, looking for signs that genetic engineering is part of the process. Here's what we've found: Upside Foods, one of the two companies that received USDA approval, has filed several patents related to genetic engineering and the production of lab-grown meat. SciFi Foods, another developer of cultivated beef, has discussed how CRISPR gene editing allowed them to reduce production costs 1,000-fold. 

Future consumers of cultivated meat have the right to decide whether or not to eat products made with GMOs. Consumer trust is crucial to success — and irreplaceable if squandered. If cultivated meat is to achieve widespread consumer acceptance, brands using genetic engineering must offer transparency to the general public. 

That is, if we can iron out the practical, economic and environmental wrinkles.

In search of a smaller carbon footprint

Industrial-style livestock farming is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for an estimated 60% of the food system's carbon footprint. As climate scientists consistently point out, big contributors are also big opportunities for improvement. But, is cultivated meat a climate solution?

Early studies indicate that cultivated meat might be too energy-intensive to move the needle on climate change. A 2023 paper, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, estimated that cultivated meat's environmental impact could be much worse than conventionally-produced beef.

With the exact processes used to make cultivated meat still shrouded in secrecy, a full and reliable life-cycle accounting is tough to come by.

"But, will it scale?"

If lab-grown meat could be produced more energy-efficiently (a big "if"), it would still have to be dramatically scaled up and widely adopted to help with GHG emissions. Meat-eaters would need to consistently opt for cultivated meat products instead of traditionally produced meat. However, the price of cultivated meat likely places it out of reach for many shoppers. 

One analysis landed on $17/lb as a possible low-end production cost, which would then be marked up along the supply chain. “A $17 pound of ground cultivated meat at the factory quickly becomes $40 at the grocery store — or a $100 quarter-pounder at a restaurant,” reported The Counter.

The issue could be moot. Dr. Dave Humbird, the author of that $17/lb hypothesis, has since concluded that cultivated meat faces intractable challenges at scale. "None of this stuff makes any commercial sense until everyone’s eating it," he says. "Even the biggest advocates of the technology are not talking about [cultivated meat making a dent in the market by] 2030 anymore.” (The UN International Panel on Climate Change has cited 2030 as a line in the sand for climate action because failure to meet GHG emission reduction targets before that time could irreversibly alter the planet).

It's important to consider that conventionally produced meat comes with its own set of externalized costs. Between taxpayer-funded industry subsidies, the exploitation of workers and animals and widespread environmental degradation, the price we see at the grocery store is artificially low.

Cultivated + plant-based

With the promise of a cultivated meat revolution seeming increasingly unlikely, alternative protein producers have begun to embrace technology mash-ups as a potential solution. Cultivated meat could be one ingredient in a primarily plant-based product, offering that extra bit of authenticity while addressing the scale issues of pure cultivated products.

However, not all plant-based products are created equally. Genetically modified ingredients, including GMO soy and the bloodlike synbio "heme" used in Impossible Burgers, are barriers to adoption by natural shoppers who prefer to avoid GMOs.

Should these collaborations move forward, we urge brands to build trust with their customers by offering a complete and transparent accounting of how products are produced. Any viable replacement for traditional livestock farming must live up to its environmental promise. A commitment from plant-based and cultivated meat producers to be explicit about their methods, help solve the climate crisis and go non-GMO would make dedicated followers of legions of natural shoppers. Full transparency could be their victory lap.