Cultured meat—a humane meat production system

The production of cultured meat is feasible with existing tissue engineering techniques and holds great promises as an alternative to conventionally produced meat. As the conditions in a bioreactor are controlled and manipulatable, it will ensure production of designer, chemically safe, and disease-free meat besides reducing the animal suffering significantly. Although its environmental impact is not clear yet, social acceptance and cost of production are believed to be the main hurdles in the path of success of this novel agricultural harvest. Since crucial knowledge is still lacking on the biology and technology, it may be concluded that the production of highly structured unprocessed meat faces considerably greater technical challenges and a great deal of research is still needed to establish a sustainable cultured meat production system on an industrial scale and the focus must be on filling these gaps in knowledge.