Technological Development Case Study: Cultured Meat
‘Lab-grown’, cultured, or simply ‘clean-meat’ is made in a process involving culturing stem cells in a growth medium around biological scaffolds. The aim is to replicate the structure, consistency, and flavour of the organic product without needing animal involvement beyond the harvesting of the initial cell line.
At present, homogenous products (i.e burgers) have been developed, while more complex foodstuffs, which require the inter-development of a range of tissues are yet to be realised due to the technical challenge. Additionally, difficulties in encouraging growth without an established vasculature means most cell culturing requires foetal bovine serum, a solution which is unlikely to suit widespread adoption among the ‘ethical’ consumers being targeted.
The idea of cellular agriculture is not new, Winston Churchill suggested in 1932 that it would be employed within 50 years to ‘escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing’ (Churchill and Muller, 2016). However the technology and formation of the sector has only arisen since 2000. In 2020 the sector took its largest financial leap, with Memphis Meats raising $180m in a single funding round, more than previously invested in the entire sector (Good Food Institute, 2020).
Lab-grown meat is a valuable case study in the field of innovation management. Firstly, it exemplifies both product and process innovation (as defined by the OECD, 2002) and allows discussion of the interlinked nature of these types of innovation.
Due to its foundation in medical research, lab grown meat may appear to be an iteration on an existing technology rather than a stand-alone innovation, demonstrating that this is not the case highlights the nuance underpinning many common definitions of innovation. As the demand which drove the development of the technology was in a different sector to the eventual target market, there is opportunity for discussion of the more complex cross-disciplinary models of innovation, as opposed to a simple market-demand or research-push.
The emergence of the sector is, itself, innovative. Rather than ‘ethical’ versions of a product being a post-engineered niche, the sector developed with ethics leading its value-add. In short, there is little way to extract value if the ethical basis is removed (or if it fails due to technological constraints) (Mouat, et al., 2019).
Finally, the case study demonstrates the stages of innovation and, importantly, the consequences of missing some. The considerable investment hides a shaky technical foundation (Chriki, 2020) and the almost entirely private development means it passed over many benefits of open innovation in its early stages.
As a result, the case study demonstrates many key themes in innovation management provides a modern comparison for other examples of innovation driven by ‘investment hype’ rather than proven technology. These concerning parallels with well-documented innovation failures, for example the VR boom and winter of the 1990s, will also be examined to draw evidence-based conclusions about the future of lab-grown meat.
