Cellular Agriculture for Sustainable Food and Materials

Our current agricultural practices have major contributions to climate change, 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions arise from food production. Earth's population is rising and more people will need to be fed in the future. Current practices are unsustainable and insufficient to meet this challenge. Also food packaging and other materials pose a major burden on Earth's resources and contribute to the unsustainability of our modern lifestyle. Modern consumers are becoming increasingly aware also of aspects of animal welfare and the impact food has on their health. The conditions of food and materials production involving animals are being increasingly questioned and rejected.

Cellular agriculture produces proteins and lipids for foods, materials and other applications in laboratories and bioreactors rather than on fields or through animal farming. Its products may have the same attributes as conventionally derived products, but without involving animals or plantations, on minimal resources and with less environmental impact. Cellular agriculture offers sustainable alternatives for our modern food and materials industries. Using side streams from agricultural and food processing as raw material for the production of proteins supports industry in the transition to more sustainable practices.

Cellular agriculture is quickly gaining momentum globally and a large number of new start-ups are being founded exploiting these technologies. Products and technologies of cellular agriculture have existing and developing global market potential with forecasted fast market growth. The CERAFIM project will focus on proteins and lipids produced through cellular agriculture for applications in food and materials. The project will encompass the entire value chain from food processing and agricultural side streams as raw materials, pretreatment of these raw materials, microbial cultivation for protein and lipid production, downstream processing and finally to formulation into products.