Production cost of cultivated meat is to decline by 99% in less than a decade

In less than a decade, companies have been able to reduce the production costs of cultivated meat by 99 percent. If costs follow the same trajectory as that of human genome sequencing (for which costs, on average, dropped by 45 percent annually between 2001 and 2021), cultivated meat can achieve cost parity with conventional meat by 2030

According to McKinsey analysis, about 75 percent of costs can be eliminated through increased scale and best-in-class manufacturing processes, while roughly 25 percent of additional costs can be eliminated by fine-tuning R&D, bringing the total cost down 99.5 percent, from the low thousands of dollars to under $5 per pound. Further cost reduction can be achieved by blending cultivated meats with plant protein.

A recent Life Cycle Assessment by CE Delft found that cultivated meat is significantly (over 75 percent) more sustainable by measures such as CO2 production and land and water usage than beef and has a sustainability profile similar to that of poultry and pork. 2 Cultivated meat’s sustainability profile can be better than that of chicken or pork if sustainable energy is used or if process improvements are implemented, such as if cooling is not needed for the bioreactor

The industry, which at present comprises fewer than 100 start-ups, attracted roughly $350 million in investments in 2020 and about $250 million thus far in 2021 from some of the largest animal-protein players, including Tyson and Nutreco, and well-known investors, including Temasek and SoftBank.