In this project we are creating a safe way of growing cells from livestock to create food sustainably. The world's population is expected to reach 9bn by 2050\. Current food systems cannot feed these people. Meat is particularly inefficient and damaging to the environment, so alternative production methods are needed. Cultivated meat is a solution using cell culture to grow meat, similar to fermentation for beer. However, animal cells for making meat (muscle and fat) do not grow well in culture and so stem cell technologies are favourable because theoretically they can grow indefinitely and produce the enormous quantities of muscle and fat cells needed to make meat. Pluripotent stem cells are expanded in large numbers and then converted to muscle and fat cells using chemicals. They are genetically engineered and the chemicals are expensive, particularly for making meat, which needs to be at affordable prices for consumers. There are also questions about safety, regulatory compliance and consumer appeal of genetic engineering and chemicals in food systems. Our solution is a smart molecular technology that enables meat cells to be expanded to enormous quantities using a molecular stimulation that does not genetically modify the cells. The technology is controllable and so safety concerns that are associated with permanently immortalised cells are overcome. **Our solution is a smart molecular technology that temporarily 'immortalises' the cells so that they can be expanded to enormous quantities, without permanently changing them. The technique does not genetically modify the cells and is controllable within the production process and so safety concerns that are associated with other permanently immortalised cells are eliminated.**

Global meat consumption is not sustainable even at current levels, yet it is set to double by 2050\. A radical change in how we produce meat is needed, otherwise environmental damage by climate change will accelerate, with catastrophic and irreversible results for the planet. The cultivated meat industry is now rapidly emerging to accelerate the path to global food security, eliminate animal cruelty in intensive livestock farming, and make strides towards net zero meat production to address climate change. The major challenge for cultivated meat producers is scalability and high cost of reaching industrial production. This is because culture media that provides nutrition to the meat cells during production is very expensive and it is hard to intensify the process to get more product per unit volume. University of Birmingham have a world leading academic team of chemical engineers working on food manufacturing and engineering. They will partner with a regional startup called Quest Meat, also based in Birmingham, who are developing patent-pending ingredients for the cultivated meat sector that will facilitate the acceleration of cultivated meat to consumers, by reducing cost, energy use and inconsistency that production methods to date have brought. The project will deliver a game-changing innovation in the form of low-cost, regenerative, food-grade ingredients, called NEUTRIX and NEUSOL, that completely transform the economics of cultivated meat and improve meat product consistency, driving down costs to make them comparable to current farmed meat prices. Our initial feasibility work indicates other advantages including: our feedstocks can be easily produced in large quantities at very low cost; they can support many different meat cell types in bioreactor culture; and they can contribute to final product formation. University of Birmingham will lead a feasibility study that seeks to understand and extend stability and shelf life, to lower costs and energy use even further, because ingredients often have to be shipped refrigerated or frozen, which is costly and consumes energy. We will make our ingredients commercially available to the whole global cultivated meat industry to accelerate market uptake of this revolutionary food platform that is so critically needed now to address food security, climate change and health.

Rising meat/protein demand and awareness for environmental protection needs are driving changed outlooks within the meat industry. The growing need for alternative protein sources to combat meat shortages along with a fast-growing population is enhancing the need for cultured meat production. However, persistent technical challenges in manufacturing and in deriving low-cost end-products hampers rapid growth potential. End-consumers are shifting their focus towards sustainable lifestyles, seeking meat with lower environmental impacts than resource-intensive traditionally-farmed meat. The UK is set to become a world-leading developer of cultured meat, with a predicted 31% (£1.7bn) market-share by 2030, supporting 9,200-16,500 new jobs. QuestMeat and Multus are pioneering biotechnology start-ups within the cultivated meats sector. Together with UCL, this consortium will develop 'CULT-GRO', a formulation for cultured meat production. This project will respond to the cultivated meat production need and deliver more sustainable, lower-emission alternative protein sources, with faster production and adaptive supply strategies of proven formulations at-scale. This will enable the UK's cultivated meat market to respond to food supply-chain demands more rapidly, reducing carbon emissions and addressing the shortages in meat globally. This project is anticipated to deliver transformative effects for QuestMeat and Multus, and will lead to a huge impact on the UK's cultured meat supply-chain. CULT-GRO is an enabler to catalyse/accelerate the commercial implementation of new cultivated meat products and provide multiple interface points for cell-line development, ingredient suppliers and cultured meat manufacturers. This project will benefit the UK economy, generating local and export revenues and headcount growth across the cultivated meat sector.