PORTFOLIO

A significant portion of the global population (> 80%) regularly includes meat in their diets (Ipsos, 2018). While conventional livestock farming has been the historical method of meat production, it utilizes around 30% of the world's land, 8% of its freshwater, and 14.5% of its energy resources. To achieve climate objectives while ensuring ample food supply for the global population, innovative techniques for food production are required (Pelle, 2022). Cellular agriculture (cell ag), holds great promise in this regard. It involves cultivating animal cells to create consumable products like meat and fish. Although initial meat products have been successfully developed using this approach, their thickness is currently limited, restricting the range of available options to ground and processed meat products. With the approval of cultivated/ clean meat in the US and Singapore, and on-going approval processes in many other countries, including Switzerland, the demand for solutions to cultivate whole-cuts and filets is drastically increasing. sallea AG (http://www.sallea.ch) is developing porous structures, so-called scaffolds, which provide the growth environment for cells to grow into a three-dimensional structure, such as a steak or fish filet. Due to the patent-pending platform-based approach, these novel scaffolds can be created from a wide range of edible, nutritious materials, and may further improve the taste and texture of the final product. By combining the scaffolding expertise of sallea with the experience of other component providers, a full solution is offered to cultivating meat companies. This facilitates the scaffold integration into their value chain which accelerates the development of high-value animal-based protein product and scale-up of the cultivation process.

While the scaffolding platform of sallea AG is already advanced, the integration of these scaffolds into the value chain of cultivating meat and fish companies remains a challenge. In a first step of this Innobooster project, a bioreactor insert will be developed and tested in order to easily introduce the scaffolds into the existing bioreactors of cultivating companies. The insert must be designed to provide mechanical support while simultaneously maximize nutrient transportation throughout the whole scaffold. This optimization will be done by simulations and experimental confirmation thereof, for which we can count on the support of leaders in the industry. Overall, the results of this Innobooster project will decrease entry hurdles for cultivating companies to grow high-value animal proteins, such as steaks and filets.