As British start-up Meatly receives approval to sell lab-grown pet food in the UK by the end of the year, senior reporter Silvia Iacovcich explores the latest developments in the production of cultivated animal products, looking at how far away the food industry is from selling artificially produced meat to humans.

The FoodTech industry has made remarkable strides in recent years, with a number of innovative technologies and processes making cruelty-free, sustainable, and healthier food options more accessible than ever.

Lab-grown meat is one of these transformative developments, with Britain recently becoming the first European country to approve the sale of cultivated meat for pets and London-based startup Meatly leading the way.

The announcement followed a close collaborative process between Meatly and the UK’s regulatory bodies, the Food Standards Agency (FSA), the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), and the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA). The relevant government departments also ensured that Meatly complied with all the necessary regulations.

In addition to meeting UK regulations, the start-up also compiled a comprehensive safety dossier and conducted extensive tests which demonstrate that the company’s cultivated chicken is free from bacteria, viruses, and impurities such as GMOs, antibiotics, harmful pathogens, and heavy metals, as well as ultimately proving that the nutrients it uses for cell growth are safe, the London-based producer can now sell its products on UK supermarket shelves as early as the end of the year.

The move marks a huge milestone for the cultivated meat industry, with Meatly chief executive Owen Ensor saying that it is a sign of a much-needed revolution for the food industry as whole. He even suggests that the achievement might lead to lab-grown meat production being approved for human consumption.

“Our technology is currently focused on bringing large-scale productions to meet the growing demand for sustainable pet food – but it has the potential to revolutionise how we approach food altogether – both for pets and humans,” he tells Retail Systems. “The potential in cultivated meat is incredibly exciting.”

These advancements are allowing the industry to navigate the complex regulatory landscape, collecting fundamental insights and data on how to meet safety, quality and sustainability requirements to ultimately facilitate the process of human lab-grown meat approvals. Recent achievements within lab-grown meat for the pets industry can enable more companies to test and refine their tech and scaling processes, ensuring that the transition to human consumption is smoother once regulatory barriers are cleared.

Additionally, cultivated pet food allows consumers to familiarise themselves with the idea of cultivated meat as an option on the dinner table, says Vineta Bajaj, chief financial officer at e-grocery tech specialist Rohlik Group.

“If I am feeding my dog with cultivated meat, eventually I might go with ‘it’s working for them, why wouldn’t it work for me,” she notes, adding that new generations’ pledge to sustainability are leading to an increased focus on these innovations.

The financial specialist points to several start-ups that have been launching alternatives to animal-based products in recent years – including lab-grown dairy producer Perfect Day, whose synthetic products are currently used in ice-cream, chocolate and protein powders in the US.

From an investment perspective, the spotlight is on humans rather than pets, says Archie Burgess, investment director of the venture team at Cibus Capital, a London-based investor specialising in food and agriculture.

Burgess, who spends a lot of time in the cellular agriculture space, has been in contact with more than 100 cellular meat companies.

“The majority of the market is currently focused on human consumption, not pet food consumption, and while the UK and Europe may be a bit behind, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US is way more advanced with most firms going after FDA approval as the regulatory barrier is lower there,” he explains.


Developments in the UK and Europe

While the UK celebrates the milestone of being the first European country to legalise it for sale for any purpose, the European Union (EU) is lagging behind as it is held back by regulations and lengthy approval reviews. The EU Novel Food regulation’s detailed evaluation process might also contribute to a delayed market entry.

In the past, Europe has opted for a more precautionary approach, with new technologies being cautiously tested for safety. Consumers have also proved to be wary of biotechnology in food in the past, being sceptical of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), with lab-grown meat startups potentially facing similar trust issues, according to Rohlik Group chief financial officer Bajaj.

Because of this, the focus has been mostly on plant-based alternatives rather than lab-grown meat, with companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Food gaining significant traction and diverting attention from lab grown meat.

“I think most of the capital is going to the US as a result, because that’s where firms see product market fit and revenues,” continues Bajaj. “There’s no fragmentation in terms of retail distribution.”

Burgess says that he has completed more investments in the US.

“In the US, regulatory barriers, including for GMO crops and novel foods, are lower and approval processes are faster compared to the UK or Europe,” he explains. “However, the UK is beginning to differentiate itself slightly in this area.”

Barriers to scaling lab-grown meat products

Burgess notes how lab-grown meat has a commercial advantage over plant-based products that have maintained a limited consumer reach despite registering growth, as they fail to secure interest from a range of consumers, including flexitarians.

“Lab-grown products can potentially have a much bigger impact,” he explains. “Many companies are focusing on creating animal fats because plant-based alternatives don’t match the taste, texture, or smell of real animal fat.”

Animal alternatives tailored to humans need to taste good and combine strong nutritional profiles while ensuring affordability, says Burgess. He highlights that these are prerequisites that the plant-based industry seems to have failed to satisfy, leading to increased competition for relatively limited shelf space and consumers demanding a greater variety of products.

Lab-grown meat products could potentially fix these issues, thanks to their ability to tailor nutritional contents and address specific dietary needs – for example, decreasing the amount of saturated fats or saturated fatty acids, without having to compromise on the final taste or texture, continues Burgess.

While cultivated meat still holds great promise, reducing production costs and scaling up manufacturing still represents significant challenge.

The popularity of precision fermentation, a biotechnology process that uses genetically modified microorganisms to produce specific compounds, has been growing significantly in recent years, with forecasts indicating it could reach a valuation of $17.43 billion by 2028, according to Cision’s Global Fermentation Market Report. But further investment in the infrastructure is still needed, with companies like Perfect Day and The Every Company raising substantial funds to scale their own operations.

In less than a decade, lab-grown meat companies have been able to reduce the production costs of cultivated meat by 99 percent, according to a report from McKinsey. If costs echo the trajectory of human genome sequencing, cultivated meat could achieve cost parity with conventional meat by 2030, the report added.

“Technological advancements are happening faster than most people realise, but scaling up the infrastructure will still take a long time,” explains Burgess.

With the food market projected to grow by 6.48 per cent (2024/2029) resulting in a market volume of US$12.4 trillion in 2029, a lot of facilities that provide fermentation technologies are simply too expensive to operate just on a purely lab-grown perspective.

“The main obstacles are in the technical details—reducing costs and improving technology,” continues Burgess. “Scaling up is crucial, but we still need to fully understand the technical progress required to make these products more affordable.”

Meatly says it is focusing on scaling up and optimising costs. Producing lab-grown meat – whether for pets of humans – is a complex and expensive process.

“Making top-quality cultivated meat isn’t the easiest process in the world,” the company’s chief executive admits.

Because of that, there may be some way to go before fully lab-grown meat products go to market for humans. The rollout is more likely to start with a hybrid approach, whereby products include a small amount of lab-grown meat combined with ingredients such as soy protein.

The benefits of lab-grown meat

Meatly’s chicken is cultivated from animal cells, often from a live animal through a biopsy or from other sources like fertilised eggs.

“Our technology allows us to grow real meat in our labs using a small sample of animal cells, which we nurture in a controlled environment,” Ensor explains.

The final product, however, offers a plethora of solutions to pressing environmental challenges using a fraction of resources compared to traditional meat production.

“We can produce the exact amount of meat needed, without waste, and in a way that’s much kinder to the planet,” he says. “In my view, cultivated meat is not just an alternative; it’s the most logical and sustainable path forward for food production.”

Ensor continues: “The nutritional profile is also an important detail for pets who require animal protein in their diets. Cultivated meat also allows us to offer a product that is closer to what pets would naturally eat but without the environmental and ethical concerns associated with conventional meat production.”

Looking ahead

Backed by £3.5 million in investment, Meatly has achieved regulatory approval in less than two years and developed a protein-free food product which costs less than £1 a litre, significantly reducing production costs.

“Our primary focus is ensuring that our product is commercially viable,” Ensor explains, as the firm works on reaching industrial volumes in the next three years. With sale approval granted, the firm is also thinking about licensing its technology to other firms.

According to Burgess, there might be different licensing options available for the future. Meatly might potentially license to large food corporations and to established food companies that have the manufacturing capabilities, distribution networks and capital to scale up production.

But it could also opt for strategic partnerships with ingredients suppliers or equipment manufacturers, licensing the technology in exchange for access to complementary capabilities or resources, or secure exclusive regional licences or non-exclusive global licenses, Burgess explains.

“While our first partnerships have been UK-focused, we are intending to explore new exciting possibilities and opportunities abroad, this will continue to bring our innovative products to people and pets around the world,” Ensor highlights.

With its ability to facilitate more sustainable global protein consumption and address some of the world’s biggest environmental challenges, lab-grown meat has the potential to completely reshape the food industry.

While cultivated meat is expected to expand beyond the UK pet food sector eventually, with much of the market currently focused on developing products for human consumption, in 2024 it simply cannot match the prices of traditional animal goods.

However, depending on the progress made in reducing production costs and scaling manufacturing, cultivated meat designed for human consumption could achieve cost parity as early as 2030. If producers of lab-grown meat for humans are at the same time able to meet the UK’s regulatory requirements – as Meatly has with its pet food products – we could potentially see cultivated meat on our shelves in one form or another in the next five years.

---