Future of Cultured Meat Production: Hopes and Hurdles

Abstract

Rising environmental issues, animal welfare concerns and vulnerable food supply chain especially during pandemics, as COVID-19 demands an effective and long-term solution for food security in future. All of these challenges encourage the researchers to find more reliable and clean ways of food production such as cultured meat. This process involved the production of animal meat in lab using large bioreactors without raising animals. Cultured meat production is widely accepted among animal rights activists and it can solve the issues related to conventional farming such as excessive use of land resource, animal slaughter, foodborne diseases and antibiotic resistance. Despite of all these advantages, it is facing some serious challenges, which includes technical, social and ethical limitations. Extracting specific cell line, development of animal-free growth media, upgradation of bioreactors, development of desired scaffolds and changing the public perception towards lab grown meat are fundamental challenges that need to be discuss. This review intends to summarize both technical and social challenges that are halting the availability of cultured meat in market and suggests some feasible recommendations to overcome these obstacles.