Timeline of cellular agriculture

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This page is a timeline of major events in the history of cellular agriculture. Cellular agriculture refers to the development of agricultural products - especially animal products - from cell cultures rather than the bodies of living organisms. This includes in vitro or cultured meat, as well as cultured dairy, eggs, leather, gelatin, and silk. In recent years a number of cellular animal agriculture companies and non-profits have emerged due to technological advances and increasing concern over the animal welfare and rights, environmental, and public health problems associated with conventional animal agriculture.[1]

Timeline

YearEvent
1912French biologist Alexis Carrel keeps a piece of chick heart muscle alive in a Petri dish, demonstrating the possibility of keeping muscle tissue alive outside of the body.[2]
1930Frederick Edwin Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead predicts that "It will no longer be necessary to go to the extravagant length of rearing a bullock in order to eat its steak. From one 'parent' steak of choice tenderness it will be possible to grow as large and as juicy a steak as can be desired."[3]
1932Winston Churchill writes "Fifty years hence we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium."[3]
Early 1950sWillem van Eelen recognizes the possibility of generating meat from tissue culture.[2]
1971Russell Ross achieves the in vitro cultivation of muscular fibers.[4]
1995The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves the use of commercial in-vitro meat production.[5]
1999Willem van Eelen secures the first patent for cultured meat.[2]
2001NASA begins in vitro meat experiments, producing cultured turkey meat.[6][7]
2002Researchers culture muscle tissue of the common goldfish in Petri dishes. The meat was judged by a test-panel to be acceptable as food.[2]
2003Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr of the Tissue Culture and Art Project and Harvard Medical School produce an edible steak from frog stem cells.[8]
2004Jason Matheny founds New Harvest, the first non-profit to work for the development of cultured meat.[3]
2005Dutch government agency SenterNovem begins funding cultured meat research.[9]
2005The first peer-reviewed journal article on lab-grown meat appears in Tissue Engineering.[10]
2008The In Vitro Meat Consortium holds the first international conference on the production of in vitro meat.[11]
2008People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals offers a $1 million prize to the first group to make a commercially viable lab-grown chicken by 2012.[5]
2011The company Modern Meadow, aimed at producing cultured leather and meat, is founded.[12]
2013The first cultured hamburger, developed by Dutch researcher Mark Post's lab, is taste-tested by Hanni Rützler.[13]
2014Muufri and The EVERY Company, companies aimed at producing cultured dairy and eggs, respectively, are founded with the assistance of New Harvest.[14][15]
2014Real Vegan Cheese, a startup aimed at creating cultured cheese, is founded.[16]
2014Modern Meadow presents "steak chips", discs of lab-grown meat that could be produced at relatively low cost.[12]
2015The Modern Agriculture Foundation, which focuses on developing cultured chicken meat (as chickens make up the large majority of land animals killed for food[17]), is founded in Israel.[18]
2015According to Mark Post's lab, the cost of producing a cultured hamburger patty drops from $325,000 in 2013 to less than $12.[19]
2016New Crop Capital, a private venture capital fund investing in alternatives to animal agriculture - including cellular agriculture - is founded. Its $25 million portfolio includes cultured meat company Memphis Meats and cultured collagen company Geltor (formerly known as Gelzen), along with Lighter, a software platform designed to facilitate plant-based eating, a plant-based meal delivery service called Purple Carrot, a dairy alternative Lyrical Foods, the New Zealand plant-based meat company Sunfed, and alternative cheese company Miyoko’s Kitchen.[20]
2016The Good Food Institute, an organization devoted to promoting alternatives to animal food products - including cellular agriculture - is founded.[21]
2016Memphis Meats announces the creation of the first cultured meatball.[22]
2016New Harvest hosted New Harvest 2016: Experience Cellular Agriculture, the first-ever global cellular agriculture conference.[23]
2018Paul Shapiro's book Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World, which chronicles the entrepreneurs, scientists and investors seeking to create the world's first slaughter-free meat.[24] The book was placed on The Washington Post's bestseller list.[25] That same year, the biotechnology company Geltor used lab-grown, animal-free leather to bind a copy of the Clean Meat book, an early example of cellular agriculture applied to materials beyond food.[26][27]
2019 Perfect Day (formerly Muufri) sells 1000 3-pint bundles of ice cream made with non-animal whey protein.[28]
2020Memphis Meats received a US$161 million investment in its Series B, which is more than everything that had been invested in the industry so far which was US$155 million.[29]
2020The FDA issues a “no questions” letter in response to Perfect Day's GRAS notice (GRN No. 863) for its β-lactoglobulin produced by fermentation using Trichoderma reesei, a milk protein intended as a substitute for dairy- and plant-derived proteins in food.[30]
2021 Tufts University is awarded US$10 million by the USDA to establish the National Institute for Cellular Agriculture.[31]
2021The FDA issues a “no questions” letter on The EVERY Company's (then Clara Foods Co.) GRAS notice (GRN No. 967) for a soluble egg-white protein (recombinant ovomucoid) produced by Komagataella phaffii and marketed as EVERY ClearEgg.[32]
2023The FDA issues a “no questions” letter on The EVERY Company's GRAS notice (GRN No. 1025) for an animal-free pepsin A enzyme preparation produced by Komagataella phaffii, for use in cheese production, protein hydrolysis, and brewing.[33]
2023The FDA issues a “no questions” letter on The EVERY Company's GRAS notice (GRN No. 1104) for a non-animal egg-white protein produced by Komagataella phaffii (marketed as EVERY Protein/EVERY EggWhite), intended as a substitute for hen egg-white protein across a range of foods.[34]
2024The FDA issues a “no questions” letter on Geltor's GRAS notice (GRN No. 1171) for a collagen polypeptide produced by Escherichia coli and marketed as PrimaColl, reportedly the first collagen added to the FDA inventory since 1999.[35]
2024 Senara GmbH, with CEO Dr. Svenja Dannewitz Prosseda, presents the first-ever picture of a cell-cultivated milk at Slush in Helsinki and on their LinkedIn profile

See also

References

  1. "Cellular agriculture for a brighter future". The Animalist. March 22, 2016. Retrieved June 6, 2016.
  2. Zuhaib Fayaz Bhat; Hina Fayaz (April 2011). "Prospectus of cultured meat—advancing meat alternatives". Journal of Food Science and Technology. 48 (2): 125–140. doi:10.1007/s13197-010-0198-7. PMC 3551074.
  3. "Culturing Meat for the Future: Anti-Death Versus Anti-Life" (PDF). Retrieved June 5, 2016.
  4. Ross, Russell (1 July 1971). "Growth of Smooth Muscle in Culture and Formation of Elastic Fibers". The Journal of Cell Biology. 50 (1): 172–186. doi:10.1083/jcb.50.1.172. PMC 2108435. PMID 4327464.
  5. Markowski, Jonathon (December 31, 2013). "Moments in Meat History Part IX – In-Vitro Meat". Retrieved June 5, 2016.
  6. Macintyre, Ben (2007-01-20). "Test-tube meat science's next leap". The Australian. Retrieved 2011-11-26.
  7. "The Year in Science: Technology". Discover. January 2006. Retrieved 2019-10-08.
  8. "Ingestion / Disembodied Cuisine". Cabinet Magazine. Winter 2004–2005.
  9. Datar, Isha (November 3, 2015). "Mark Post's Cultured Beef". New Harvest. Retrieved June 5, 2016.
  10. "Paper Says Edible Meat Can be Grown in a Lab on Industrial Scale" (Press release). University of Maryland. 2005-07-06. Retrieved 2008-10-12.
  11. Siegelbaum, D.J. (2008-04-23). "In Search of a Test-Tube Hamburger". Time. Archived from the original on January 22, 2010. Retrieved 2009-04-30.
  12. Harvey, Chelsea (September 26, 2014). "This Brooklyn Startup Wowed The Science Community With Lab-Made 'Meat Chips'". Business Insider. Retrieved June 5, 2016.
  13. Fountain, Henry (August 5, 2013). "A Lab-Grown Burger Gets a Taste Test". The New York Times. Retrieved April 24, 2016.
  14. Datar, Isha (November 5, 2015). "Muufri: Milk without Cows". New Harvest. Archived from the original on June 9, 2016. Retrieved June 5, 2016.
  15. Datar, Isha (November 4, 2015). "Clara Foods: Egg Whites without Hens". New Harvest. Retrieved June 5, 2016.
  16. Wohlsen, Marcus (April 15, 2015). "Cow Milk Without the Cow is Coming to Change Food Forever". Wired. Retrieved June 7, 2016.
  17. United Poultry Concerns. "Chickens". Retrieved May 19, 2016.
  18. Leichman, Abigail Klein (November 19, 2015). "Coming soon: chicken meat without slaughter". Israel21c. Retrieved May 18, 2016.
  19. Crew, Bec (April 2, 2015). "Cost of lab-grown burger patty drops from $325,000 to $11.36". Science Alert. Retrieved June 7, 2016.
  20. Burwood-Taylor, Louisa (March 17, 2016). "New Crop Capital Closes $25m Fund, Invests in Beyond Meat". AgFunderNews. Retrieved June 6, 2016.
  21. Zacharias, Nil (March 16, 2016). "The Race to Disrupt Animal Agriculture Just Got a $25 Million Shot in the Arm, and a New Non-Profit". Retrieved June 6, 2016.
  22. Hanson, Hilary (February 2, 2016). "'World's First' Lab-Grown Meatball Looks Pretty Damn Tasty". The Huffington Post. Retrieved April 24, 2016.
  23. "First-ever cellular agriculture conference". May 31, 2016. Archived from the original on August 18, 2016. Retrieved June 6, 2016.
  24. Clean Meat. 2 January 2018. ISBN 978-1-5011-8908-1. Retrieved 22 October 2020.
  25. "Washington bestsellers: Hardcover nonfiction". Washington Post. Retrieved 22 October 2020.
  26. "San Leandro lab's secret foray yields animal-free leather". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 25 June 2026.
  27. "This Book Is Bound in Lab-Grown Leather". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 25 June 2026.
  28. Kowitt, Beth (July 11, 2019). "The First 'Animal-Free' Ice Cream Hits the Market". Fortune. Retrieved 2020-09-26.
  29. "Memphis Meats' investment more than doubles global investment". The Good Food Institute. 2020-01-22. Retrieved 2020-02-23.
  30. "GRAS Notice (GRN) No. 863: β-lactoglobulin produced by Trichoderma reesei". U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 25 March 2020. Retrieved 25 June 2026.
  31. Wolf, Michael (2021-10-13). "USDA Awards $10 Million to Tufts University to Establish a Cultivated Protein Center of Excellence". The Spoon. Retrieved 2021-10-14.
  32. "GRAS Notice (GRN) No. 967: Soluble egg-white protein produced by Komagataella phaffii strain GSD-1209". U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 9 September 2021. Retrieved 25 June 2026.
  33. "GRAS Notice (GRN) No. 1025: Pepsin A enzyme preparation produced by Komagataella phaffii strain DFB-002". U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 6 January 2023. Retrieved 25 June 2026.
  34. "GRAS Notice (GRN) No. 1104: Egg-white protein produced by Komagataella phaffii ATCC GSD-1235". U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 17 October 2023. Retrieved 25 June 2026.
  35. "GRAS Notice (GRN) No. 1171: Collagen polypeptide produced by Escherichia coli K-12 S9188". U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 22 October 2024. Retrieved 25 June 2026.