ABSTRACT
Lab-grown meat, also known as cultivated meat, is an emerging novel food with the potential to address some of the current global challenges, while providing a sustainable food option. It is real meat with the same structure, composition, and taste, but it doesn’t require animal slaughter and is produced in a controlled manner. Due to its complex structure with multiple cell types, the production of cultivated meat is challenging. Commercial availability and affordability of these novel food products will be determined by the designed manufacturing processes. This chapter discusses the different elements required to produce cultivated meat such as suitable cell sources, growth media, scaffolds and biomaterials. Different manufacturing routes and emerging technologies such as cell encapsulation in hydrogels or novel bioreactor designs with applicability in the production of cultivated meat will also be identified and discussed. The engineering and biological challenges will be discussed in the context of lessons to be learnt from other areas such as advanced therapeutics manufacturing.
