Critical review of cultivated meat from a Nordic perspective

Highlights

• Cultivated meat is identified as a sustainable method to produce animal proteins in the future.

• Technological challenges includes cell source and media composition.

• Ethical concerns includes techno-skepticism and food equity.

• The sustainability of cultivated meat is dependent on production systems and energy sources.

• Stakeholders of cultivated meat includes consumers, politicians and farmers.

Abstract

Background

Cultivated meat is a novel technology with the potential to partly substitute conventional meat in the future. Production of cultivated meat is based on biotechnology for tissue engineering, up-scaling of cell cultures and stem-cell differentiation, providing the basis for large-scale proliferation of the parent cell and subsequent differentiation into primitive skeletal muscle structures known from conventional meat. Development of cultivated meat is considered a socio-technological challenge including a variety of technical, sustainability, ethical, and consumer acceptance issues.

Scope and approach

As the Nordic countries share common history and roots of food culture, cultivated meat will be introduced into a socio-cultural context with established food traditions. This review summarizes the current knowledge and activities on the development of cultivated meat in the Nordic countries and considers this novel food product in a specific socio-cultural context.

Key findings and conclusions

The production of cultivated meat in the Nordic countries, must encompass solutions that are accepted by the typical Nordic consumer. In general, this favors solutions for cell culturing based on non-GMO cells and locally accessible raw material for cell medias and scaffolding. From the perspective of the Nordic countries, this will improve the environmental, societal, and ethical context of cultivated meat.