Novel edible cellulose microcarriers for the cultured meat industry

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Seventy years ago, Churchill famously said: 'We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.' Cultured meat is a healthier (less antibiotics), more ethical (better animal welfare), more efficient (better use of land) and sustainable way to produce meat and meet the protein demand of a growing population. The market for cultured meat is estimated to reach £30B in 2030 (McKinsey).To scale the production process there is a need for enabling technologies, like edible microcarriers that allow anchorage, proliferation and differentiation of stem cells, and then harvesting of the final product. Naturbeads cellulose beads production process (currently scaling from pilot to demo plant) allows customizing the properties of the cellulose beads to promote cells attachment, growth, and differentiation. We have already developed a prototype that shows performance in cell culture plates (2D) superior to commercially available scaffolding that are currently only used in R&D due to their prohibitive costs. With this project we aim to move from proof of concept to a commercial prototype that we can sell by the end of the project for industrial R&D to lock in customers for scaled up production. Naturbeads will work together with Cellular Agriculture to test the performance of the cellulose microcarriers in bioreactors (3D) to optimize the parameters for cell proliferation, differentiation in stirred tanks, and cell detachment.Naturbeads carriers are made of cellulose a natural, edible, and biocompatible biopolymer, that can be sourced sustainably from forestry groups part of PEFC (Programme for the endorsement of Forest Certification). It is also inexpensive, offering a low-cost scaffolding structure with the potential to lower production costs of culture meat, allowing it to reach price parity with conventional meat within the next five years.