UC Davis

Investment in animal cell-based meat (ACBM) or cultured meat has been increasing at a rapid pace with the total investment being greater than 2 billion USD by 2021. When the investment in ACBM initially occurred ACBM had not been economically vetted. This dissertation contains the first publicly available technoeconomic assessment of ACBM. This assessment was conducted utilizing cellular metabolic requirements and chemical/process engineering conventions. Findings of the first TEA ACBM indicate that nearly all technical hurdles would need to be resolved before economic viability could be achieved. Shortly after publication of the first TEA of ACBM, two other TEAs of ACBM were published and all three were normalized and critically examined for this dissertation. This critical examination is contained within this dissertation to provide readers with a comparison of the methods and assumptions contained within each ACBM TEA. An additional TEA was conducted for an economically viable protein alternative, mycoprotein to validate methods which were utilized in the initial TEA of ACBM. Findings of the mycoprotein TEA indicate that the utilized method provided reasonable estimates for the cost of food produced in bioreactors. The initial ACBM TEA indicated that a substantial quantity of animal cell growth medium may be necessary to produce ACBM at an industrial scale. To understand the potential environmental impact of ACBM production, quantification of the embedded resources contained within the animal growth medium was deemed necessary. Essential 8TM (E8) is a stem cell growth medium that had been suggested as a suitable growth medium for ACBM with some modification. A cradle-to-production gate life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted for E8. The embedded resources were quantified for each E8 component (when possible) and the environmental impact of a liter of E8 was calculated. Utilizing data obtained from the analyzed TEAs and E8 LCA, a LCA of near-term ACBM was conducted. The LCA of ACBM indicated that the environmental impact of near-term ACBM was likely greater than commercially produced beef potentially by orders of magnitude.