We’ve reached a turning point in the food-tech sector – climate change will begin to eliminate choices or make them inaccessible and too expensive for a growing population. Scientists recognise this shift and have begun engineering solutions, like cell-based foods, that use less land and emit fewer greenhouse gases.

However, despite promising breakthroughs, several misconceptions hinder the widespread adoption of cell-based foods. Addressing these myths is crucial if we are to usher in a new era of biological engineering for sustainable food solutions. Weslee Glenn, VP of innovation at US-based plant cell culture start-up Ayana Bio, unpacks.

Myth 1: Cultivated meat is the only game in town

It seems that most people associate cellular agriculture primarily with cultivated meat. The excitement is justified: US regulators approved the first cell-based chicken products last year. But other cell-based strategies have already found widespread use, including in the world of plants.

Cultured meat is the new kid on the block. By extension, plant cell cultivation is more like the college kid returning home: decidedly more mature but still navigating its potential. Already successful in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, its deployment in food applications is a recent development.

While these technologies share a common goal of sustainability, their approaches diverge beyond this. Having multiple players and various platform technologies in the cellular food ecosystem is beneficial for sustainability, nutrition and cost solutions. This diversity allows for mutual learning from challenges and collective celebration of successes.

Myth 2: Cell-based foods will never scale

Scaling and reaching price parity are biotech’s catch-22. You’ll never be able to reach price parity if you can’t scale. And you’ll never reach large scales unless you show there’s a way to achieve price parity.

Precision fermentation is already widely scaled. For example, about 80% of rennet produced today is derived from precision fermentation. Since regulators approved animal-free rennet in 1990, it has become the global standard, largely replacing cow-derived products. This success underscores the method's scalability. Moreover, new products like cow-less whey protein are rapidly entering the market, further demonstrating its expanding impact.

The lesson here is to solve the right problem and increase production capacity. Innovation means offering a solution at a price point people are willing to pay for.

Notably, plant cell culture has already been scaled, though primarily for the pharmaceutical industry. Food-based applications are more recent and limited to date, but they are on the rise.

Traditional agriculture is not usually the optimal way to produce the phytochemicals that improve health. Many of these specialised plants, such as ginseng, are not domesticated and even cultivated varieties like cacao or saffron struggle to meet demand sustainably. Plant cell cultivation emerges as a promising alternative.

Plant cell cultivation companies are producing ingredients that increase nutrient density, especially as many of the world’s most nutritionally dense foods tend to be expensive and difficult to harvest.

Right now, achieving cost parity with large-scale commodities poses challenges. However, plant cell cultivation has succeeded with pharmaceuticals and cosmetics because those goods sit at higher price points. We can reach cost parity with food ingredients by ramping up the supply and driving down the cost of expensive biomass while building out manufacturing capacity. It’s a virtuous cycle that would eventually place even less expensive botanical products within reach.

Myth 3: Cell-based foods are unsafe

Food is more than just food; it’s imbued with meaning. Food is connection. Food is culture. Food is comfort. These forces place food in the mind’s holy of holies, a sacred place to be guarded and remain unchanged.

This innate protectiveness doesn’t mean that food innovations are unsafe. Quite the opposite: Cell-based foods are heavily regulated and face more scrutiny than foods produced traditionally. Cultivated meat is not made from cancer cells and won’t cause cancer. You’re unlikely to be allergic to cell-derived rennet (i.e., chymosin) unless you are allergic to cow-derived chymosin (the key component of rennet) because they are highly similar proteins.

If a regulatory body deems the food unsafe, it doesn’t hit shelves. Therefore, dismissing cell-based foods as unsafe likely reflects societal mistrust rather than factual concerns. We can combat this mistrust by remaining transparent and delivering on our promises, especially the ones that consumers themselves can’t effectively judge directly like health benefits and sustainability claims. Equally important is ongoing communication about how cell-based foods address nutritional and cost challenges in an increasingly challenging global environment

As an industry, we should address legitimate safety concerns and the underlying fears associated with them. We should keep our promises. And we should live up to the hype.

#AyanaBio #US #plantcellcultivation #opinion