Alternative Protein Fundamentals Programme

Policy & Entrepreneurship Track

Week 6: What are the main technical challenges? 

In September 2021, an article was published in The Counter which caused a stir in the alt. protein community. It strongly questioned the feasibility of cultivated meat at scale. This conclusion is rooted in a Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) commissioned by Open Philanthropy to assess the scale-up economics of cultivated meat. Separately, a TEA commissioned by GFI has indicated that cost-competitive cultivated meat is possible. We must also remember that there is inherent uncertainty built into predictions made by TEAs - they make calculations grounded in currently existing technologies and thus cannot account for radical technological innovation.

These are important conversations to be having. Is it worth pursuing the innovation necessary to scale up cultivated meat if the potential upside is high enough? The purpose of this session is for you to read the discourse around the scale-up of cultivated meat and come to your own conclusions.

One thing that both sides agree on is that the TEA identifies a number of key technological bottlenecks currently preventing the scale-up of cultivated meat. This session also encourages you to browse GFI’s database of key bottlenecks across the alt. protein space, including plant-based and fermentation, and to identify the areas most applicable to you.

Core Material [~2hrs 10mins]

Exercise: GFI’s Alternative Protein Solutions Database details a number of research, business and ecosystem bottlenecks in the alt. protein space. Take 20 minutes to browse the database and identify three opportunities that might be the most relevant to you. [20 mins]

Discussion Prompts:

Is cultivated meat feasible?

  • Debate: “We believe that cultivated meat will make up >25% of the global meat market in the next 20 years”. Your facilitator will pick groups of participants to argue for and against. You will have ~10 mins in breakout rooms in your teams to prepare your arguments before beginning the debate

  • Further discussion prompts/debate points to consider (these are by no means exhaustive, and some of them are not particularly relevant to the debate question - just interesting to think about!):

    • Predictions for cultivated meat timelines have so far been overly optimistic. How might investors react if cultivated meat isn’t hitting major milestones over the next 5 years?

    • Are there other research avenues that might have more longevity than start-ups with VC funding?

    • How might externalised costs (greenhouse gas emissions, animal welfare etc.) be priced into conventional meat over the coming years?

    • What areas of the cultivated meat scale-up process seem the most promising for technological innovation? How could we bring people together to collaboratively work on these challenges?

    • Will/should people continue to work on cultivated meat when other, more developed, technologies such as plant-based and fermentation show promise?

    • Even if you think the probability of producing cultivated meat at scale is low, the expected value of the impact of the technology may be high if you think its potential impact is high enough if achieved. How do you view the probability of success and the impact if successful? On balance, do you think it is worth researching?

Alternative protein bottlenecks

  • Which three opportunities did you identify? 

    • Of these, which has the highest potential impact?

    • Which is best suited to your current skillset?

    • Who could you collaborate with to complement your skillset?

  • How might you be able to use the Capstone Project to work towards solving these bottlenecks?

Further Resources:

The two TEAs referenced can be found here. They are very dense but worth skimming through if you are particularly interested in the details:

Other conversations: