TEA of cultivated meat. Future projections for different scenarios

In this report we make a Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) for the production of cultivated meat (CM) at industrial scale, in 2030, based on primary data from companies. We developed a model for the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) based on current production technology and costs for inputs, and subsequently explored various avenues for cutting costs when production takes place in full-scale plants, realized in 2030.

We conclude that substantial cost reductions that bring CM production costs close to the benchmark are feasible. This requires a combination of reductions that covers nearly all aspects of the business case.

Parallel to the TEA, a life cycle assessment (LCA) was carried out. There is some overlap in factors that reduce both costs and the environmental footprint: energy efficiency, energy source, efficient use of medium and medium production, and supply chain collaboration.

Corrigendum (November 2021)
In February 2021, we have published the TEA for cultivated meat. In the TEA, we develop a model for the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) of cultivated meat, based on current production technology and costs for inputs. Then, we explore various scenarios for cutting costs when production takes place in full-scale plants, realised in 2030. In this corrigendum, we correct two errors in our analysis and we provide an additional clarification:

1. Removal of scenario 7 (higher cell density)
   In scenario 7 of the original TEA, we explore the impact of running the production process with a higher cell density. Then, in scenario 9, we combine a higher cell density with a larger cell volume. We have discovered that combining a higher cell density with larger cell volume is physically impossible adopting the quantitative assumptions in our model.
   In this corrigendum, we remove the scenario with higher cell density (original scenario 7) from the study.
2. New price for hydrolysate
   The source used for determining the lower end of the price of soy hydrolysate (Appendix B.2) is for agricultural grade hydrolysate. This is not in line with our assumptions of food grade process inputs. We have used a new price and updated the COGs figures.

Clarification
We have added some clarification on what we understand the ‘food grade’ hygiene standard for the production process to be, and why we adopt this standard.

Figure: COGS model of CM ($/kg CM), overview of scenarios (log-scale) ⁽¹⁾

⁽¹⁾ We have adopted a log-scale, for the costs differ by an order of magnitude of ~1,000; depending on the scenarios assumptions.