Today, 150 startups are seeking to develop cultivated meat in various parts of the world, and the first products have already appeared for sale. Infobae spoke with key players. The story of the first hamburger, the opportunities and challenges that exist, and the only Argentine project still standing.

More and more startups are betting on developing cultivated meat (Image generated with AI).

The future of meat is slowly being cooked in different laboratories around the world. While on farms the traditional cycle of livestock raising and subsequent slaughter continues, cultivated meat emerges as an alternative that gains followers and attracts increasingly large investments. The muscle cells that promise to revolutionize the food industry are cultivated in high-tech bioreactors.

For now, it is only a promise, but growth over the last decade is undeniable. Today, more than 150 startups work with the expectation of developing cultivated meat on an industrial scale. Singapore was the first country to approve its sale in 2020, followed by Israel and the United States. Companies like Eat Just and UPSIDE Foods have managed to pass strict regulatory evaluations, and their products are beginning to appear in restaurants and specialty butcher shops.

“The approvals have already happened, so I believe it is now more important to consider standardized approaches for regulatory evaluations,” said American bioengineer David Kaplan. “The challenge now is to ensure quality and food safety as the industry grows.”

The technique behind cultivated meat is innovative but conceptually simple. Muscle cells are extracted from an animal through a painless biopsy and cultivated in a nutrient-rich medium. Over time, the cells multiply and form similar tissues that aim to emulate those of conventional meat. According to its proponents, the method reduces the need for raising and slaughtering animals, which could result in a much lower environmental impact compared to traditional livestock farming.

However, despite the advances, prices remain an obstacle.

In its early stages, producing a kilo of cultivated meat cost thousands of dollars. Today, thanks to improvements in efficiency and production scale, costs have decreased but still remain far from competing with traditional meat. “The moment we will see cultivated meat in supermarkets depends on public and private investments. The challenge is achieving scale at cost,” explained Kaplan.

Public acceptance also plays a key role. Matti Wilks, a psychologist from the University of Edinburgh, studied how consumer perception has evolved over time. “Many people are open to trying it and recognize its environmental and ethical benefits, although the idea that it is unnatural remains an obstacle to mass acceptance.” In his research, Wilks observed that young people living in urban environments with progressive mindsets tend to be more receptive to food innovation.

The potential of cultivated meat is not limited to emulating conventional meat. Researchers are working on adapting its nutritional composition and even personalizing products according to consumer needs. “We can control the cellular content and optimize nutrients, flavor, and aroma. In the future, we could have meats specifically designed for different dietary needs,” emphasized Kaplan.

For many specialists, the biggest technical challenge is achieving a texture and mouthfeel similar to traditional meat. “Cell cultures can be scaled up to a certain extent using larger, optimized production facilities, but what makes meat attractive to eat is also its texture and structure, fat, and bones, and how these components affect the eating experience. 3D printing can provide texture but is expensive to scale. Techniques like injection molding could be key to making it more accessible,” said Andrew Maynard, professor at the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at the University of Arizona, in response to inquiries from this outlet.

In recent years, several milestones have been reached that have finally brought lab-grown meat out of the laboratory. China, a key player in the global food industry, has already included cultivated meat in its five-year agricultural plan. Singapore already sells its product—composed of 3% cultivated chicken and the rest plant-based—in specialty butcher shops. Meanwhile, in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the consumption of cultivated chicken from UPSIDE Foods, which pushes for a broader market in the near future.

As the industry advances, questions arise about its real environmental impact. “It should be more sustainable than conventional meat in terms of water and energy consumption, but there is still uncertainty about production waste and other side effects,” warned Maynard.

The race to bring cultivated meat to consumers’ tables is underway, but there are still barriers to overcome. Undoubtedly, today they are fewer than those faced by Dutch researchers twelve years ago when they produced and presented the first 100% lab-grown hamburger.

The First Hamburger:

On August 5, 2013, in a live-streamed event, Dutch pharmacologist Mark Post presented the world’s first cultivated meat hamburger. The product, barely a patty, cost 248,000 euros and took three months to produce. At that time, the industry was in its infancy, but the experiment marked a milestone that would start an emerging business.

“It took us three months to make the first two hamburgers, each composed of 10,000 hand-made fibers. I can assure you it was tedious work. My team told me that was the last time they would do it, and that’s when I understood I had to found a company,” Post recalled.

The process was completely manual. Scientists extracted muscle cells from an animal and cultured them in a nutrient-rich medium. Then they transferred them to another environment that stimulated their differentiation into muscle fibers until forming small strips about one centimeter long. For weeks, they harvested about 20,000 fibers, stored them in a freezer, and then compacted them into hamburger shape.

The presentation to the press had an extra challenge: color. Since muscle fibers were white—the meat is red due to myoglobin, a protein that stores oxygen in muscles—the researchers colored the hamburger with beet juice. They also added bread crumbs, caramelized sugar, and saffron to improve texture and flavor.

The First Hamburger, Composed of 10 Thousand Muscle Fibers:

Three years later, Post co-founded Mosa Meat, one of the leading companies in cultured meat production. “The flavor is relatively easy to match, but the texture takes more time. Fat is already present, so flavor is not much of a problem. Now, achieving a full-thickness filet mignon with the same mouthfeel will take years,” he said.

The initial production cost was prohibitive, but today the numbers are different, according to the expert. A recent study showed that cultured chicken can be produced for $6.2 per pound. “With these numbers, price parity is just around the corner,” Post emphasized.

In 2013, lab-made meat seemed like just an experiment from an overambitious scientist, unlikely ever to reach a supermarket or butcher shop. Over time, public perception changed. “Awareness about the issue grew and acceptance too. In countries where it is already marketed, the product is well received.”

For Post, the final challenge is mass adoption. To achieve widespread adoption, products must be high quality and priced comparably to conventional meat. Producing cultured meat at an industrial scale will still take a few years, although he remains optimistic. “I believe that soon we could see cultured meat in supermarkets, alongside traditional meat.”

The Country of Meat:

Meat in Argentina is much more than food: it is a symbol of identity, a tradition deeply rooted in the national culture that will hardly give way to innovation. Perhaps for this reason, and also due to lack of investment, Argentina lags behind in the development of cultured meat compared to other countries in the region and the world.

While the United States, Israel, and some Asian nations have advanced in regulations and production, Brazil has established itself as the Latin American leader thanks to a combination of public and private investment. In Argentina, however, the outlook is uncertain. Economic and regulatory difficulties have slowed sector growth, and today there is only one project underway amid tensions surrounding the product.

“The so-called ‘cultured meat’ is not meat,” stated Marcelo Rubinstein, a researcher at Conicet in the Institute of Genetic Engineering and Molecular Biology Research. “It is a set of animal cells grown under artificial laboratory conditions, which do not replicate the natural biological mechanisms of a real animal’s development.”

As he explained, cultured cells can form a homogeneous tissue with some muscle-like appearance, but without the characteristics of traditional meat. “They don’t even resemble a patty of ground meat. It is an artificial product that wants to pass as meat,” he asserted.

For Rubinstein, cultured meat not only fails in its goal to imitate conventional meat but also falls short in its promise to solve environmental and food problems. “Meat consumption is a biological imperative that has accompanied humanity for hundreds of thousands of years. In Argentina, the barbecue is part of our cultural identity. The real problem is not cultured meat but loss of purchasing power, which led to a historic record of the lowest meat consumption per capita in the last 100 years. There will be neither the scale nor the costs to replace traditional animal protein,” he argued.

Divergent Views:

The view is not unanimous. For Carolina Bluguermann, a Conicet researcher at the Institute of Biotechnological Research of UNSAM, cultured meat does represent an innovation with potential. “Technical difficulties persist, but the possibility of developing animal protein without relying exclusively on livestock farming is an alternative worth exploring,” she noted.

The main challenges remain economic and technological. Hope lies in some countries already investing in pilot factories that could change the landscape, but the cost of reagents represents another key hurdle. “Many inputs come from the pharmaceutical industry and have very high quality standards. To produce cultured meat, we need ‘food grade’ reagents, which are not yet widely available,” Bluguermann explained.

Bioreactors Used to Produce Cultured Meat in Argentina:

Another point of debate is the use of fetal bovine serum in cell cultures. “It is an animal-derived input, which contradicts the idea of completely sacrifice-free meat,” admitted the specialist, who considers that the solution would be to advance towards synthetic culture media, which are currently economically unfeasible.

Galo Balatti, director of the Biotechnology Degree at IUDPT, also offered an optimistic view about the national potential in this industry. “Argentina has clear advantages: a livestock tradition that facilitates access to quality genetics, bioreactor infrastructure, and top-level scientists,” he highlighted.

However, again, the main unknown is economic viability. “Raising and fattening an animal is a process humanity has optimized over thousands of years. Cultured meat has yet to prove it can compete on costs and scalability,” he explained.

The regulatory framework is another determining factor. Italy banned cultured meat in 2023 and Paraguay is debating similar measures. In Argentina, there is no specific legislation, which creates uncertainty for potential investors.

“I don’t see cultured meat as direct competition for traditional livestock farming. Argentines have a cultural identity deeply tied to meat consumption, and its production remains more economical with current technology. However, cultured meat can represent an opportunity to diversify production and add value to the meat supply chain. The local market could be a niche, targeted at consumers concerned about animal welfare or greenhouse gas emissions,” Balatti proposed.

The opposing views reflect a dilemma not only local but global: is cultured meat, after all, a real solution or a technological utopia? While some see it as a sustainable alternative, others consider it a chimera with no possibility of scale. In Argentina, economic barriers caused two startups to close their doors. Today, only one player remains standing.

The Only Argentine Project:

B.I.F.E. – Bioengineering in Processed Food Manufacturing – is the only Argentine startup still active in cultured meat development. It was born as a spin-off from Laboratorio Craveri, a company with almost 30 years of experience in tissue bioengineering. Its goal is to develop meat from mesenchymal cells extracted from an animal without causing harm and to reproduce muscle tissue growth in a controlled environment.

In July 2021, B.I.F.E. achieved a key milestone: the first tasting of cultured meat in Argentina. After five years of research, they demonstrated that their prototype was not only viable but also cookable and consumable. “We managed to obtain a product based on muscle cells cultivated in vitro on an edible biomaterial,” said Josefina Craveri, head of Business Development at the startup. Now, the challenge is scalability.

Four years ago, B.I.F.E. conducted the first tasting of its cultured meat prototype.

To produce meat on a large scale, B.I.F.E. must overcome the bottleneck of bioreactors. Current models are designed for bioengineering in small batches, such as in the pharmaceutical field. But when it comes to food, the volume needed is immense. “We are developing a specific bioreactor that will allow us to make that leap,” Craveri revealed.

The technology they use falls under the so-called “cellular agriculture,” which applies tools from medical science to food production. Unlike other meat alternatives, such as plant-based proteins, cultured meat aims to replicate the biological and sensory properties of the original product.
“It is expected to be practically identical in flavor and nutritional properties to traditional meat, or even improved,” said the laboratory representative.

One of the strong points of the process is total traceability. In a laboratory, every variable can be controlled, regardless of any errors that occurred in the animal’s raising. “There is no risk of microbiological contamination, antibiotic use is reduced, and unpredictable factors in the production process are eliminated,” the specialist detailed. For this reason, globally, many call it “clean meat.”

Cost is what prevents accelerating the development pace. Today, producing cultured meat is much more expensive than raising and fattening an animal. The key, they say, is to achieve more accessible inputs and optimize processes.

— “If necessary, can it compete with traditional livestock farming?”
— “We’re not here to compete; we’re here to complement,” Craveri replied. “Global meat consumption is projected to increase by 50% by 2040, and it is estimated that today we use the resources of 1.7 planets. Therefore, conventional meat production cannot and will not be enough.”

The future of cultured meat locally will depend on a combination of factors: technological advances, investment, regulations, and public acceptance or rejection. While the first products are already marketed in other countries, in Argentina, the country of meat, the road ahead looks winding.