Public Funding for Zimmer and Peacock Limited

World meat consumption has tripled since 1970 and will increase a further 76% by 2050\. In the future, there will not be enough meat available for the world's population. This shortage will hit low-and-middle-income countries, where meat is an important but limited source of nutrient-dense protein, vitamins and minerals, especially hard. Over 80 billion animals are slaughtered annually for meat, the majority being factory-farmed. Increasing livestock production isn't the answer as this promotes climate change, environmental destruction and infectious disease spread. Livestock farming generates 15% of human-made greenhouse gas (GHG) and will contribute 0.5°C to global temperatures if continued. Cattle-ranching and animal-feed crops also account for most agricultural water use and 85% of rainforest clearance. Overcrowding and poor welfare standards help spread diseases, including swine and avian flu, and are major contributors to human food poisoning. Excessive livestock antibiotic use is fueling increases in antibiotic-resistant bacteria which render antibiotic medication useless: Alarmingly, antibiotic-resistant pathogens are forecast to cause greater mortality than cancer by 2050\. Cultivated meat (CM) grows animal cells in bioreactors to produce a product similar to conventional meat but without the need for any animal suffering. CM will also use fewer resources (energy, land and water) and produces less GHG, counteracting environmental issues. Since CM only requires a few cells from animals, it eliminates farming welfare issues and antibiotic use. CM, which appeals to consumers considerate of these issues, is undertaken in carefully controlled, sterile conditions vastly improving food safety. The global US$246.9Mn CM market is set to increase to $6.8Bn by 2030\. However, to achieve this forecast, this new approach needs to produce meat at a scale before it can then address future meat shortages. The first CM burger cost $330,000, demonstrating edible CM products are possible albeit at very high costs. The challenge is to make CM in large amounts, using a cost-effective and market-competitive process. Millions of tons of meat are consumed annually, so this will ultimately necessitate the development of massive (\>10,000L) bioreactors capable of generating very high-density cell cultures. This requires cells capable of growing under demanding conditions and carefully balancing nutrients and cell-toxic by-products. These nutrients (such as growth factors) need to be cheap, well-characterised and perform consistently. This project combines the skills and capabilities of three UK universities and four UK companies developing livestock cell lines, recombinant protein technologies, hydrogels and bioreactor components to collaboratively develop technological solutions for CM production.

"Agriculture depends on soil nutrients (primarily nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium) to optimise plant development and ultimately yield. Soils contain such nutrients naturally, but growing and harvesting crops results in nutrients becoming depleted, leading to plants suffering from nutrient deficiency and decreasing yields. It is therefore crucial for food security and efficient crop production to replace the natural supply of nutrients in the soil to enable the continuous cultivation of crops. These nutrients can be added from a variety of sources - organic matter, chemical fertilisers, and certain plants (as traditionally done by crop rotation) - ensuring maintenance of soil health and fertility, enabling continuous growth of nutritious and healthy crops at high yields. Chemical fertilisers are the most efficient way to supply nutrients to the soil and have the highest cost benefit. Our entire agricultural system depends on the application of fertiliser in one form or another; it would not be possible to maintain the world's population at its current level without it. Especially nitrogen is of prime importance for farmers and food production, as the most important nutrient limiting crop development and yield, and also contributing the largest cost to crop production. However, this nitrogen is rarely efficiently managed; 110 million tons of nitrogen is applied onto fields every year, but only about a quarter of this makes it into plants, partly due to the poor nitrogen use efficiency of crops. Over application of fertiliser results in leaching of this excess into watercourses, and approximately 80 million tons of nitrogen is estimated to flow into the world's waterways every year. General overuse of nitrogen fertiliser and to some lesser extent other nutrients such as phosphate and potassium, causes eutrophication and toxic algal blooms in water systems, leading to death of aquatic organisms from oxygen depletion in the water by the algae. It also promotes denitrification by microorganisms, leading to the release of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Production of inorganic fertilisers also requires a large input of energy which further contributes to greenhouse gas emission as well as fossil fuel depletion. This project aims to develop a decision tool that will enable farmers to better optimise the quantity of fertiliser applied to crops, lowering use and increasing the percentage of nutrients taken up by plants and therefore resulting in less nitrogen (and phosphate and potassium) being released into the environment."