Frequently Asked Questions

Cellular agriculture is the production of food and materials by growing cells in a safe and controlled environment, called a bioreactor. Products like meat, milk, coffee, and chocolate can be produced without animals, and with significantly less land, water, and natural resources than traditional agriculture, reducing our impact on the climate. 

With cellular agriculture, nutritionally optimized products to be produced. For example, meat with fewer saturated fats and more unsaturated fats, or milk without lactose, or eggs without cholesterol can be made.

Read more on our editorial about Cellular Agriculture >>

Cultivated meat is meat—the same meat that you would buy at the grocery store today, but grown directly from cells through cellular agriculture. Cultivated meat is also called cultured meat and lab-grown meat.

Cultivated meat eliminates the need to raise and slaughter farm animals for food, and requires significantly less land, water, and natural resources. Cultivated meat also has the potential to reduce the spread of disease and deliver safer, more secure food products as compared with today’s intensive animal agriculture.

Cell-based foods, also known as cultivated, cultured or lab-grown foods, are foods that are made from animal cells instead of traditional animal agriculture methods. This means that the cells of an animal are grown in a controlled environment, such as a laboratory, to produce meat products without the need to raise and slaughter animals.

Because cell-based meat is produced in a lab, it is often considered a more sustainable and humane alternative to traditional meat production. Additionally, because cell-based meat is grown in a controlled environment, it can potentially be produced more efficiently and with fewer resources than traditional animal agriculture.

A bioreactor is a stainless steel or glass vessel that provides a safe, sterile, temperature-controlled, and closed environment for cultivated cells to grow. They are widely used in the food and biomedical industries to produce beer, vitamins, vaccines, and other products. Bioreactors are also sometimes referred to as cultivators.

Inside the bioreactor, cells are attached to a solid material called scaffolding, and fed liquid nutrients and oxygen. This process is similar to what happens inside an animal’s body, and allows cells to repeatedly duplicate and quickly increase in number, maturing into the muscle, fat, and connective tissue that make up meat. The cells are then harvested and packaged into final products. Some companies are pursuing a similar strategy to create milk and other dairy products.

There are several potential benefits of cell-based foods, including:

1. Sustainability: Because cell-based foods are produced in a controlled environment, they can potentially be produced more efficiently and with fewer resources than traditional animal agriculture. This means that they could help to reduce the environmental impact of the meat industry, such as greenhouse gas emissions and water usage.
2. Animal welfare: Cell-based foods are produced without the need to raise and slaughter animals, which could improve animal welfare compared to traditional animal agriculture methods.
3. Safety and quality: Because cell-based foods are produced in a controlled environment, there is a potential for improved food safety and quality compared to traditional meat production. For example, cell-based meat could be free from harmful bacteria or contaminants that can sometimes be found in traditional meat.
4. Food security: Cell-based foods could help to address global food security challenges by providing a reliable source of protein that can be produced using fewer resources than traditional animal agriculture. This could be particularly beneficial in areas where access to traditional meat sources is limited or difficult.
5. Customization: Because cell-based meat is produced in a laboratory, there is potential for it to be customized to meet specific consumer preferences, such as flavor, texture, or nutrition. This could lead to a wider variety of meat products being available to consumers.

Yes, very much so. Cell-based meat is made from animal cells that are grown in a controlled environment, while plant-based meat is made from plants, such as soy, peas, or wheat.

Because cell-based meat is made from animal cells, it is considered to be a type of real meat, while plant-based meat is a meat alternative.

CULT Food Science partners with and supports the most innovative cellular agriculture companies on the planet to create new products and businesses. Our global portfolio spans four continents and includes exposure to a diverse pipeline of cell lines, end products, scaffolding technology, growth medium, and intellectual property related to the production of cultivated meat, cultured dairy, and cell-based foods. Learn more about the groundbreaking innovation in cellular agriculture that our portfolio companies are building, across meat, fish, dairy, honey, chocolate, and coffee.

Learn more about our portfolio >>

We are developing some of the first cell-based food brands in the world, and are focused on being first-to-market in North America across a diverse product pipeline that includes candy, coffee, meat and dairy products, pet foods, and more.

Our products will first be sold direct-to-consumer (D2C), and then through national specialty and traditional retail outlets.