The need to feed the growing world population with sustainable resources is one of today’s main research topics. Aside from the efficient utilisation of existing food resources, there is also intensive work to create new food sources. Cell-based meat, also known as cultured meat produced from animal cells in a laboratory environment, is considered as one of these new food sources. Companies working on cell-based meat production aim to make meat consumption possible without the need for slaughtering and suffering animals. Of course, some very important issues such as less greenhouse gas emissions, less water consumption, less land use and less antibiotics compared to traditional animal meat are among the strong arguments used by this industry to express itself.
You will be able to produce meat without slaughtering any animals, feed millions, maybe even billions of people with it, and while doing so, your environmental footprint will be much smaller than traditional livestock farming systems… Don’t you think this seems extremely utopian in today’s conditions?
Time will tell us how utopian or not this is in reality. The industry is still at the beginning of the road and there are still many challenges to overcome. One of the most important challenges at the moment is high production costs. Because it would not be wrong to say that the current production costs are extremely utopian for an industrial production target and consumer preference. Another challenge is to prove that the environmental impact is really lower. There is some research on this, but more research is needed on the environmental impact of very large volumes of production. Also, the long-term health effects of these meats have not yet been seriously researched. In conclusion, as the industry develops and research increases, a balance may need to be struck between the advantages and disadvantages of cell-based meat.
What is not utopian in this environment is the fact that many well-established companies are investing in this field. These investors include companies from the animal nutrition industry. While we cannot yet predict how this industry will evolve, it is important to keep a close eye on how it will affect traditional animal husbandry. Because the traditional livestock industry hosts an extremely large employment and economy and may need a radical transformation depending on the development of the cell-based meat industry. In this month’s issue, we have brought together two different views on the impact and future of cell-based proteins, especially cell-based meat. We hope it will be informative…
Now let’s return to our main field, namely animal health and nutrition… This month, we have focused on a topic that we can also call the key to success in animal production, gut health. In the content of this issue, you can find various articles on research and practice in this field.
We wish you a pleasant reading… See you in the next issue…
