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Author(s): Martin Krøyer Rasmussen, Julie Gold, Matthias W. Kaiser, Jana Moritz, Niko Räty, 
Sissel Beate Rønning, Toni Ryynänen, Stig Skrivergaard, Anna Ström, Margrethe 
Therkildsen, Hanna L. Tuomisto, Jette Feveile Young 
Title: Critical review of cultivated meat from a Nordic perspective 
Year: 2024 
Version: Published version 
Copyright: The Author(s) 2024 
Rights: CC BY 4.0 
Rights url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/  
 
Please cite the original version: 
Martin Krøyer Rasmussen, Julie Gold, Matthias W. Kaiser, Jana Moritz, Niko Räty, Sissel Beate Rønning, 
Toni Ryynänen, Stig Skrivergaard, Anna Ström, Margrethe Therkildsen, Hanna L. Tuomisto, Jette 
Feveile Young, Critical review of cultivated meat from a Nordic perspective, Trends in Food Science & 
Technology, Volume 144, 2024, 104336, ISSN 0924-2244, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tifs.2024.104336 . 
Trends in Food Science & Technology 144 (2024) 104336
Available online 8 January 2024
0924-2244/© 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Critical review of cultivated meat from a Nordic perspective 
Martin Krøyer Rasmussen a,*, Julie Gold b, Matthias W. Kaiser c, Jana Moritz d,h, Niko Raty d,h, 
Sissel Beate Rønning e, Toni Ryynanen d,h, Stig Skrivergaard a, Anna Strom f, 
Margrethe Therkildsen a, Hanna L. Tuomisto g,h,i, Jette Feveile Young a 
a Department of Food Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark 
b Department of Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden 
c Centre for the Study of the Science and the Humanities, University of Bergen, Norway 
d Ruralia Institute, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 
e Nofima AS, Raw Materials and Optimization, Ås, Norway 
f Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden 
g Future Sustainable Food Systems –Research Group, Department of Agricultural Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 
h Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS), University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 
i Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Helsinki, Finland   
A R T I C L E  I N F O   
Handling Editor: Dr. R.Y. Yada  
Keywords: 
In vitro meat 
Cultured meat 
Lab meat 
Future animal-based proteins 
Sustainable proteins 
A B S T R A C T   
Background: Cultivated meat is a novel technology with the potential to partly substitute conventional meat in 
the future. Production of cultivated meat is based on biotechnology for tissue engineering, up-scaling of cell 
cultures and stem-cell differentiation, providing the basis for large-scale proliferation of the parent cell and 
subsequent differentiation into primitive skeletal muscle structures known from conventional meat. Develop-
ment of cultivated meat is considered a socio-technological challenge including a variety of technical, sustain-
ability, ethical, and consumer acceptance issues. 
Scope and approach: As the Nordic countries share common history and roots of food culture, cultivated meat will 
be introduced into a socio-cultural context with established food traditions. This review summarizes the current 
knowledge and activities on the development of cultivated meat in the Nordic countries and considers this novel 
food product in a specific socio-cultural context. 
Key findings and conclusions: The production of cultivated meat in the Nordic countries, must encompass solutions 
that are accepted by the typical Nordic consumer. In general, this favors solutions for cell culturing based on non- 
GMO cells and locally accessible raw material for cell medias and scaffolding. From the perspective of the Nordic 
countries, this will improve the environmental, societal, and ethical context of cultivated meat.   
1. Introduction 
Cellular agriculture is an emerging food production sector that in-
volves cultivation of animal, plant, fungal or microbial cells in bio-
reactors. The products of cellular agriculture consist of the cultivated 
cells such as cultivated meat (i.e., cellular products) or substances syn-
thesized by the cells such as proteins or fats (i.e., acellular products). 
Cultures of animal cells in bioreactors have been suggested as a valuable 
source of proteins for the future. A recent report from IPCC highlights 
that cellular agriculture, including cultivated meat, has potential in 
mitigating climate change (Rama et al., 2022). The Nordic countries 
(Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Finland) have strong traditions 
within agriculture and food production and, cultivated meat has 
attracted attention among consumers, producers, politicians, and re-
searchers in these countries. 
Although an early international scientific Symposium on cultivated 
* Corresponding author. 
E-mail address: martink.rasmussen@food.au.dk (M.K. Rasmussen).  
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect 
Trends in Food Science & Technology 
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tifs 
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tifs.2024.104336 
Received 5 July 2023; Received in revised form 3 January 2024; Accepted 5 January 2024   
Trends in Food Science & Technology 144 (2024) 104336
2
meat1 in 2008 in Norway and a workshop2 in 2011 in Sweden have put 
cultivated meat on the agenda, it has been slow in gaining momentum in 
the Nordic countries. Generally, there has been a lack of support among 
public funding agencies in the Nordic countries to establish research and 
development of cultivated meat, although funding programs embracing 
cultivated meat have appeared recently (e.g. “GrowPro” funded by the 
Norwegian Research Council, “CleanPro” funded by the Danish Ministry 
for Food and Agriculture, and a minor part of the “Catch the Carbon” 
research program funded by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of 
Finland). 
Within the past 5–7 years, the number of start-up companies in 
cultivated meat and seafood internationally has increased exponen-
tially. In the Nordic countries >5 startup companies have recently been 
established and large 4–5 year publicly funded R&D and platform pro-
grams have been recently funded in Denmark3 and Norway.4 The Nordic 
countries have recently prioritized the research field and the develop-
ment of cultivated meat requiring multi-actor participation. 
Historically, the necessity for alternative meat production or alter-
native proteins in the Nordic countries has not been high on the agenda. 
The Nordic countries have a relatively low population density ranging 
from 14 (Norway) to 136 (Denmark) people/km2.5A wealth of agricul-
tural land is available and allows outdoor farming of grazing cattle, 
sheep, goats or reindeer, or in-door farming of chicken and pigs. 
Moreover, hunting of wild moose, deer and boars has strong cultural 
traditions in the Nordic countries. Hence, limitations on the production 
of and access to meat is not experienced in the Nordic countries. This is 
in strong contrast to countries with high population densities, such as 
Singapore, Holland, and Israel, where cultivated meat acceptance, 
production, and consumption (at least for Singapore) is already in place. 
The Nordic countries have, to a certain extent, a common history and 
worldview, which has fostered a high level of cohesion. Therefore, 
cultivated meat research has to encompass the cultural, ethical and so-
cietal setting of these countries. Moreover, Sweden, Finland and 
Denmark are all members of EU, while Norway has access to the market 
of the EU member states through its membership in the European Eco-
nomic Area. This arrangement allows the free movement of food prod-
ucts within the Nordic countries and the EU market. Hence, a European 
perspective frames cultivated meat development within the Nordic 
countries. In addition, the emerging field of cultivated meat develop-
ment together with alternative plant-based protein sources are antici-
pated as essential in the future sustainable food production systems. 
Therefore, the production of cultivated meat should be aligned with the 
concept of circular bio economy working together with the conventional 
meat, vegetable, and grain production industries in the Nordic region, 
based on local production using local raw materials. 
The Nordic Joint Committee for Agricultural and Food Research 
funded a novel network, joining researchers from the Nordic countries 
working within the space of cultivated meat in 2020. The network 
consisted of researchers from many fields, covering the technical, 
environmental, ethical and consumer perspectives of cultivated meat. 
This review is the outcome of the network activities and aims to collate 
the current knowledge and activities on cultivated meat in the Nordic 
countries and provide the cultural context as a common ground for the 
discussion of the future of cultivated meat within the Nordic countries. 
The paper provides a perspective to discuss the future of cultivated meat 
in the Nordic region. Thus, we have taken a holistic, yet critical, 
approach to describe the technical, societal, and ethical settings in 
which cultivated meat will be operating and identify current challenges 
for consumer acceptance in the region (Fig. 1). 
2. The technical aspects of cultivated meat 
Bypassing livestock production cultivated meat is a complex food 
product that consists of animal muscle cells grown in a bioreactor. The 
basic technology for cultivated meat includes the following four steps: 1) 
harvesting of the muscle stem cells, 2) multiplying the number of cells, 
3) differentiation of the muscle cells into primitive muscle fibers, 4) and 
assembly and maturation into a final meat product. 
2.1. Cell sourcing and culturing 
The starting point for cultivated meat production is the in vitro 
cultivation of animal cells with a high proliferative capacity, which 
subsequently can differentiate into primitive muscle fibers. Several stem 
cell types can theoretically be utilised for this purpose, e.g. embryonic 
stem cells (ESCs) (Bogliotti et al., 2018; Yuan, 2018), mesenchymal stem 
cells (MSCs) (Du et al., 2010; Okamura et al., 2018; Ramírez-Espinosa 
et al., 2016) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) (Specht et al., 
2018). However the currently most used and well-studied cell source is 
the satellite cells (SCs) (Ben-Arye & Levenberg, 2019). 
2.1.1. Satellite cells 
Satellite cells (SC) are adult skeletal muscle stem cells located be-
tween the sarcolemma and the basal lamina of skeletal muscle fibers 
(Mauro, 1961). The ability of the activated SC, to undergo proliferation, 
differentiation, and fusion into new multinucleated muscle fibers, makes 
them relevant candidates for creating cultivated meat products. These 
animal stem cells can be obtained from a muscle biopsy from live ani-
mals or tissue sampled at the slaughterhouse. The isolation of SCs is 
relatively straight-forward; consisting of mechanical disruption of the 
muscle tissue followed by an enzymatic digestion, which collectively 
releases the SCs along with other cell types (Veiseth-Kent et al., 2019). 
The SCs can be further purified by several strategies such as pre-plating 
techniques (Shahini et al., 2018; Yoshioka et al., 2020), cold treatment 
(Benedetti et al., 2021), density gradient centrifugation (Matsuyoshi 
et al., 2019), fluorescence-activated cell sorting (Maesner et al., 2016) 
and magnetic-activated cell sorting (Agley et al., 2015). Nevertheless, 
SCs can still be used without any purification (Baquero-Perez et al., 
2012), and even after prolonged cold storage of muscle tissue, SCs 
retained their viability and myogenic capacity (Skrivergaard et al., 
2021). Interactions between SCs and fibroblasts are important for SC 
expansion, myogenesis and muscle regeneration (Murphy et al., 2011), 
which suggests advantages of an impure cell population. However, the 
heterogeneity of these cultures might negatively affect long-term 
expansion and subsequent myogenic differentiation in large-scale bio-
reactors, as a fibroblastic sub-population could potentially overtake the 
culture. Hence, cell population characteristics is important for predict-
ing and controlling upscaling. 
The innate ability of satellite cells to easily differentiate into mature 
muscle-fibers, due to their committed stem cell type (Asakura et al., 
2001), also limits their ability to proliferate. Thus, after a certain 
amount of cell doublings (known as the Hayflick limit) they will even-
tually undergo cell senescence (Khorraminejad-Shirazi et al., 2019). 
This provides the SC with a major disadvantage to produce cultivated 
meat and necessitate a continuous source of starting cell material, 
although the availability is not an issue with the current production of 
farmed animals. This limitation could however be overcome by genetic 
1 The first In vitro Meat Symposium, April 2008, hosted by Nofima (previous 
Matforsk) and Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway. http://web. 
archive.org/web/20150216061850/http://invitromeat.org/content/view 
/14/1/.  
2 European Science Foundation Exploratory Workshop on In vitro Meat: 
Possibilities and realities for an alternative future meat source, Julie Gold & 
Stellan Wellin, Aug 31-Sept 2, 2011, Chalmers University of Technology, 
Gothenburg, Sweden.  
3 Flagship project on Cellular food for sustainable production and innovative 
food concepts (CellFood), Jette Feveile Young, Aarhus University, June 2022.  
4 ARRIVAL of cellular agriculture- Enabling biotechnology for future food 
production, Coordinated by Nofima/funded by Norwegian Research Council, 
June 2023–2027.  
5 Wikipedia, population data from 2020. 
M.K. Rasmussen et al.                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
Trends in Food Science & Technology 144 (2024) 104336
3
engineering (Lundberg et al., 2002) or environmental cues (Ding et al., 
2018) fostering immortalization. The limitation of SC expansion might 
be more easily circumvented by cell immortalization. Some established 
methods exist for the creation of an immortalized cell line, e.g. discov-
ering spontaneous immortalization or genetically engineering the cells 
to express telomerase and/or to inactivate cell cycle regulators (Soice & 
Johnston, 2021a). Examples of these in the cultivated meat industry 
already exist, as the company Future Meat (Israel) uses a patented 
spontaneously immortalized chick embryo fibroblast, while Upside 
Foods (USA) uses a patented engineered chicken skeletal muscle cell line 
with both overexpression of telomerase and gene knock-out (the cell 
cycle regulators p15 and p16 (Soice & Johnston, 2021b)). 
2.2. Cell culture media 
Although the first proof-of-concept burger, produced using bovine 
SCs, were presented in 2013, only ground meats and patties (usually in 
the mm thickness range) are produced today for several reasons. Large- 
scale bio-production of animal proteins needs to become more efficient 
than the 2D standard technique used for culturing the first hamburger 
(Post, 2014). It is difficult to grow enough viable muscle cells, since the 
muscle cells are adherent and efficient growth depends on optimal 
growth conditions including sufficient nutrients and an appropriate 
microenvironment. Thus, the cell culture media to sustain the produc-
tion of cultivated meat is among the biggest challenges to solve. The 
optimal growth media must be low-cost, sustainable, food-grade, 
available in large quantities, and most importantly effective in main-
taining cell proliferation and promote differentiation (O’Neill et al., 
2021). Basic cell culture media contains glucose, amino acids, minerals, 
vitamins and buffers; ingredients generated by bacterial fermentation 
and from plant sources. In addition, cell culture media is traditionally 
supplemented with large quantities of blood serum, containing growth 
factors, enzymes, carbohydrates, and proteins vital for growth and dif-
ferentiation of cells. Normally, blood serum is harvested from bovine 
fetuses at the slaughterhouse, which positions serum supplementation as 
a limiting factor for sustainable large-scale productions in addition to 
ethical issues. 
Internationally, a great deal of research has been conducted to 
develop serum-free media (SFM) using e.g., recombinant proteins 
(Venkatesan et al., 2022), and many different SFM formulations have 
now been developed that supports high cell growth and differentiation 
capacity. However, commonly these media are seldom based on com-
ponents compatible with food. Moreover, while commercial SFMs are 
effective for most immortalized cell-lines, they are not necessarily 
designed for primary cells, with cost and sustainability in mind. Many of 
the commercially available serum replacements show lower perfor-
mance, are only suitable for a limited number of cell lines and may even 
undesirably alter the cell phenotype (Kolkmann et al., 2020; Post et al., 
2020). For example, most SFMs are produced with biomedical 
research-grade quality compounds, applied in industries where the final 
product value is exceptionally high (millions of dollars per kg) compared 
to the food industry market value (O’Neill et al., 2020). 
A promising solution, from a Nordic perspective is the use of side- 
streams from established food-productions. A recent study reports 
increased cell growth and metabolic rates using SFM based on protein 
hydrolysates from pig blood plasma, egg white, chicken carcass and 
yeast extract (Andreassen, Pedersen, Kristoffersen, & Ronning, 2020). 
By-products from food production are available in large quantities, in 
fact it is estimated that nearly 40–60% of total mass of farmed fish and 
animals are classified as residual products with food-grade quality, 
including carcasses, blood and skin (Aspevik et al., 2017). Biotech in-
dustries in the Nordic countries, based on enzymatic hydrolysis of 
by-products, have already begun exploring the promising potential of 
the generated peptides from underutilized biomasses. In Norway, there 
are already industrial enzymatic protein hydrolysis plants built that 
produce peptides from poultry and marine resources at industrial scale. 
Apart from the nutritional values, bioactive peptides are released from 
the by-products via hydrolysis and can exert beneficial effects on 
physiological functions, including cell growth regulation and promoting 
cell culture performance. For example, hydrolysates from food sources 
such as chicken carcass have been shown to have growth-promoting 
effects and stimulate insulin-associated signaling pathways in 
Fig. 1. The future frame of cultivated meat is defined by the interplay between technical, ethical, sustainability and stakeholder aspects.  
M.K. Rasmussen et al.                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
Trends in Food Science & Technology 144 (2024) 104336
4
mammalian cell culture (Iwasa et al., 2021; Roblet et al., 2016). 
Bioactive molecules originating from by-products, such as carbohy-
drates, glycosaminoglycans, eggshell membrane and protein hydroly-
sates, are examples of promising constituents that can be included in a 
tailor-made growth media. Also, plant-based hydrolysates are prom-
ising constituents in SFM, and preliminary data from Nofima, Norway, 
show e.g., pea hydrolysates as growth promoting agents (unpublished 
data). Interestingly, hydrolysates from food by-products are food-grade, 
low-cost, easy to obtain and contain a wide range of low molecular 
weight (MW) nutrients found in traditional basic cell culture medium. 
Previous research has shown that hydrolysates of by-product rich in 
small peptides were beneficial to cell growth (Andreassen, Pedersen, 
Kristoffersen, & Beate Rønning, 2020). The response was dependent on 
both material and choice of enzyme during hydrolysis. Also, it was 
demonstrated that supplementation of fibrous proteins (collagen, 
entactin and laminin) in combination with glycosaminoglycans 
improved cell growth and early differentiation of primary skeletal 
bovine muscle cells (Rønning et al., 2013). Others have shown improved 
muscle protein synthesis using protein hydrolysates from soy, dairy, beef 
and egg protein (Roeseler et al., 2017). The eggshell membrane (ESM) is 
another promising fibrous material that contains active components 
(carbohydrates, proteins, and peptides), growth factors and enzymes 
supporting cell growth and survival (Ahmed et al., 2017; Vuong et al., 
2017) (Fig. 2). 
Kolkmann et al., (Kolkmann et al., 2020) demonstrated that SFMs 
developed for fibroblasts and human pluripotent stem cells could sustain 
cell expansion of bovine satellite cells, although not as efficiently as 
media containing FBS. Adding various myogenic-related growth factors 
(GFs) to the medium improve myogenesis progression and may be suf-
ficient as serum replacement (Ben-Arye et al., 2020; McAleer et al., 
2015). However, like FBS, these essential signaling molecules are 
expensive, and the cost can be over 95% of the total SFM composition. 
Recently, Stout et al., (Stout et al., 2021) also demonstrated that bovine 
satellite cells could maintain robust cell growth for several passages 
when adding recombinant albumin to SFM. Although this research 
clearly shows promising results for development of a SFM, further 
optimization of cell culture efficiency and cost reductions are required to 
produce a scalable cultivated meat SFM. 
2.3. The production of cultivated meat as a food 
2.3.1. Scaffolds 
The ability of the muscle cells in up-scaled production to produce 
structured proteins, fats, and connective tissues is a challenge for 
cultivated meat production. Scaffolds offers support for cell attachment, 
provide guidance for cell proliferation, differentiation, and organization 
(Chan & Leong, 2008; Engler et al., 2004; O’Brien, 2011). Thus, the 
scaffold should provide the cells with biochemical and biophysical cues, 
so to control the shape and cell type of the growing tissues, and at the 
same time facilitate oxygen and nutrient delivery and removal of toxic 
products produced by the cells (Chan & Leong, 2008; Chen et al., 2012; 
Schuster et al., 2016). Scaffold development for cultivated meat has 
many aspects in common with the research area of tissue engineering, 
with the additional challenges of scalability, edibility, sensory proper-
ties and affordability required for food production. Hence, while several 
materials are suitable for biomedicine, here we only include those that 
Fig. 2. There are several important criteria for an optimal growth medium: Low-cost, sustainable, serum-free, food-grade, available in large quantities, and most 
importantly effective in maintaining cell proliferation. Two viable solutions from a Nordic perspective are using by-products from Nordic side streams (upper part of 
figure), and by recombinant protein production (lower part of figure). 
M.K. Rasmussen et al.                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
Trends in Food Science & Technology 144 (2024) 104336
5
could be edible and relevant to the Nordic countries e.g., originating 
from side-streams of food or ligocellulosic production in the Nordic 
countries (Fig. 3). 
Scaffolds can be used as support only; e.g. microcarriers used during 
an expansion phase in bioreactors which are removed from the final 
product or incorporated within the cultivated cells for consumption. The 
last option will probably be the most appealing for large scale produc-
tion. The mentioned options require different scaffold material, and it 
follows that if the scaffold will be consumed as food, it needs to be food 
grade, and add desirable nutritional and sensorial attributes to the 
cultivated meat. This reduces the choices of material and cross-linkers. 
Apart from gel-based scaffolds, cells can grow on micro-particles or 
micro-carriers. There are several micro-carriers developed for the 
biomedical area, with potential in cellular agriculture (McKee & 
Chaudhry, 2017). These are micro-carriers based on cellulose, gelatin, 
starch and microcarriers based on food side-streams. (Norris et al., 2022; 
Wallin, Hoglund, et al., 2012). Starch is a non-animal derived carbo-
hydrate, abundantly available across the globe and in the Nordic 
countries. Starch microspheres can be used for differentiation of muscle 
cells in suspension culture but needs to be cross-linked to form the 
micro-spheres and surface functionalized to support cell attachment and 
growth. C2C12 myocytes were shown to attach and differentiate into 
myofibers on positively charged starch microspheres, but not to negative 
or neutral spheres (Wallin, Hoglund, et al., 2012). Micro-carriers will 
not structure the cells, so the cells needs either to be separated from the 
carriers, the carrier degrade over time or be edible. Nutritional value of 
the C2C12 cells growing on positively charged starch microspheres had 
total protein content of cultivated cell or starch biomass within the range 
measured for hamburger, sausage and steak, while myoglobin levels 
were 10 fold lower (Wallin, Hoglund, et al., 2012). Moreover, 
microcarriers based on by-products from the food industry, including 
eggshell membrane powder and collagen from turkey, have bioactive 
surfaces allowing interactions with the satellite cells (Andreassen et al., 
2022). 
Porous scaffolds have sponge like structure with pore size ranging 
from 10 to 100s of μm, showing advantages compared to hydrogels, in 
having larger pore size allowing for flow of nutrients through the 
scaffold-cell construct. Porous scaffolds can be obtained through 
different techniques. Texturized soy, i.e., extruded defatted soy flour, 
has been shown to act as support for growth of skeletal muscle cells 
(Ben-Arye et al., 2020). Texturized soy provides a support with inter-
connected pores in the micrometer range when wet. Seeding cells on top 
of wet texturized soy, enable cells to grow and penetrate up to 1 cm into 
the scaffold (Ben-Arye et al., 2020). Soy protein is not a Nordic grown 
ingredient, but extrusion of the Nordic-relevant pea protein has been 
suggested as scaffold (Krona, Klose, Gold, Kadar, & Stading, 2017), in a 
similar way as shown for soy. 
The mentioned scaffolds are example with little control of material 
properties (such as mechanical, pore size and elasticity). Porous scaf-
folds can also be made under more controlled routes and has been used 
extensively in biomedicine. Generally, pores in the region of μm require 
a template, such as salt, ice, or sugar. The network is formed around the 
template, which, when removed, are dissolved, or melted, leaving a 
network with large pores, resembling a sponge like material (Lozinsky 
et al., 2003; Strom et al., 2015). Examples are cryo-gels that can be made 
with edible polysaccharides and proteins such as; chitosan-gelatin, 
crosslinked with glutaraldehyde (Miranda et al., 2011), as well as 
chitosan-collagen and fish gelatin (Tylingo et al., 2016), collagen (Chen 
et al., 2024) or freeze drying of ethanol suspended glutenin, which 
supported proliferation and differentiation of C2C12 cells without the 
Fig. 3. Sources and biopolymers for microspheres and scaffolds. Cellulose derived from wood, alginate from macroalgae, gelatin from animal or fish side-streams and 
starch from cereals or potatoes are examples of polymers that can be made into microcarrier beads and other forms of scaffolds for cultured meat production (upper 
part of figure). Images of microcarrier beads based on modified starch (images on the left) with proliferating cells, and porous scaffolds exemplified through calcium 
alginate gels interspersed with capillaries or polymeric fibers (images on the right) with differentiation of cells to muscle fibers (green, myosin heavy chain) (lower 
part of figure). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.) 
M.K. Rasmussen et al.                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
Trends in Food Science & Technology 144 (2024) 104336
6
addition of ECM proteins (Xiang et al., 2022). Porous scaffolds have also 
been prepared from eggshell membrane containing bioactive in-
gredients (Rønning et al., 2020). 
Hydrogels are crosslinked hydrophilic polymers with large water 
holding capacity. It is common that gels contain up to 99% water and 1% 
polymer. Hydrogels have been extensively used in the biomedical area 
due to its high-water content mimicking biological tissues. Gels are also 
used widely in the food industry. The gels have pore-sizes in the range of 
nm. Examples of polysaccharide hydrogels are calcium induced alginate 
(Draget et al., 1997; Schuster et al., 2014) and pectin gels (Strom et al., 
2007), agarose (Martinez-Sanz et al., 2020; Normand et al., 2000), ion 
induced gellan (Rodriguez-Hernandez et al., 2003), chitosan (Mon-
tembault et al., 2005) and carrageenan (Rochas & Rinaudo, 1984). Such 
gels can be made in a variety of shapes and with controlled mechanical 
properties. They are based on food-grade materials of low cost but lack 
the tripeptide sequence arg-gly-asp (RGD), necessary for cell adhesion. 
Alginate synthetized with RGD is commercially available, but the 
mentioned polysaccharides can also make gels in the presence of gelatin 
(Goudoulas & Germann, 2017; Panouille & Larreta-Garde, 2009), 
collagen (Baniasadi & Minary-Jolandan, 2015; Moxon et al., 2019) or 
fibrin (Vorwald et al., 2020), which inherently provide RGD motifs. 
Alginate forms gels readily when in contact with calcium ions (Draget 
et al., 1997; Schuster et al., 2014). Schuster and co-workers showed how 
skeletal muscle cells could be grown in capillaries through an alginate 
gel. The capillaries served to align the muscle cells as well as ensuring 
constant nutrient delivery (Schuster et al., 2017). 
Addition of proteins to polysaccharide-based gels can also be done 
for nutritional reasons. The gelation properties of the polysaccharides 
can in these cases be altered. Agarose and pea protein (<2.5%), as well 
as gellan and pea protein (1%) gels can be formed, and the proteins are 
non-toxic for C2C12 cells. However, it is not yet known whether the 
added protein influence cellular growth, morphology and differentiation 
(Wollschlaeger et al., 2022). Collagen is often mixed with poly-
saccharides or require crosslinking as collagen by itself forms mechan-
ically weak materials. Crosslinking with edible, non-toxic 
riboflavin-derivate lumichrome offers a viable alternative to other 
cross-linkers (Grønlien, Pedersen, Sb, Solberg, & Tønnesen, 2022). 
Achiving adequate vascularization and or alignment of the muscle 
cells, are often mentioned challenges for the scaffolds formed from 
hydrogels (Schuster et al., 2016). Solutions could be to grow the cells on 
porous sheets, and then stack these together to form 3D-scaffold 
(Papenburg et al., 2009) and to develop channel networks in 3D prin-
ted sacrificial molds (Mohanty et al., 2015), or creating micropatterned 
gels promoting alignment of cells (Orellana et al., 2020). Creating 
micropattern of such gels are simple and flexible: a mold is made from 
for example acrylic material, upon which the micro-patterned gels are 
cold-casted (Andersson et al., 2018; Orellana et al., 2020). 
The possibilities of creating scaffolds with controlled mechanical 
properties, in different shapes and patterned structures from different 
materials are considerable. However, limitations of their use in terms of 
scaling (Post, 2012), as edible ingredients, their taste and texture if 
consumed with the cultivated cells, and their nutritional value is not yet 
explored. 
2.4. Sensory and nutritional characteristics 
Apart from the technical challenges of producing a muscle-based 
biomass suitable for cultivated meat, the final transformation into 
food should also be considered. Cultivated meat consisting of muscle 
fibers and adipocytes, or lipids added as supplement, needs to be 
transformed from a cell culture into a food product. In terms of taste and 
nutrition of a cultivated meat product, the addition of cultivated animal 
fat is essential (Fraeye et al., 2020). Therefore, cell sources that can 
contribute to this might be equally important as the muscle component. 
Due to several differentiation pathways of SCs (Aguiari et al., 2008; Song 
& Tuan, 2004) and the adipogenic potential of SCs (Asakura et al., 2001; 
Sanna et al., 2009), it would be possible to transdifferentiate SCs in such 
a way that both muscle-fiber and fat cells are co-cultured for a better 
tasting cultivated meat product. SCs with co-cultured adipocytes is also 
a possibility (Kuppusamy et al., 2020). However, the added complexity 
might be problematic, and the addition of cell cultured fat after 
muscle-fiber formation might be the solution. 
The use of iPSCs, immortalization and genetic engineering would 
also apply for the many possible adipogenic cell types and lipid pro-
ducing systems herein. Nevertheless, the importance of fat in cultivated 
meat should not be neglected (Fish et al., 2020). We have recently 
described the importance of fat from the perspective of conventional 
meat science extrapolating to possible similar processes in cultivated 
meat (Young et al., 2023). To the best of our knowledge, the scientific 
literature does not yet offer sensory comparisons between conventional 
meat and cultivated meat. Nutrients and oxygen are withdrawn from the 
cells when harvesting cells for cultivated meat. In this process, it is 
foreseen that the individual muscle fibers change their metabolism 
leading to a maturation process where the structural proteins in the 
myofibrils, are degraded. This process both changes the structure and 
generates peptides and amino acids contributing to the taste, or as 
precursors reacting with reducing sugars upon cooking (Maillard re-
actions) where a range of aroma components are formed (Jousse et al., 
2002). 
In addition, lipids also significantly contribute to flavor both per se 
and through oxidation processes. Fat in the final product further con-
tributes to the unique mouthfeel and juiciness of cultivated meat. 
Moreover, juiciness is also closely linked to water holding capacity of the 
meat. Water is held within the myofibrillar structure, being dependent 
of the pH change derived from the anaerobic post-harvest metabolism. 
This emphasizes the importance of ensuring the development of myo-
fibrils in the cell culture, ensure embedding of a lipid source into the 
product and secure an optimal post-harvest pH profile which all con-
tributes to taste and juiciness of the final product. 
Apart from taste and functionality, nutritional value is important for 
the consumer. Protein and lipid are the major nutritional components of 
meat. The biological value (BV) related to amino acid composition and 
digestibility of the protein (Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid 
Score, PDCAAS) and the profile of fatty acids are central. For proteins, it 
is desirable to obtain as high BV and PDCAAS (Pereira & Vicente, 2013) 
as possible whereas a health beneficial fatty acids profile with high 
amounts of unsaturated fatty acids should be aimed for from a purely 
nutritional perspective. Moreover, it may also be critical to ensure the 
content of minor components like vitamin B12 and highly bioavailable 
iron (heme iron) as these components are primarily obtained from the 
animal derived products (Bohrer, 2017). The officially recommended 
diet in the Nordic countries (Blomhoff et al., 2023), recommends 
reduced overall meat intake. Thus, it is expected to demand a cultivated 
meat product delivering similar or better nutritional value compared 
with conventional meat for consumer acceptance. 
3. The sustainability of cultivated meat 
One of the overarching arguments for establishing the technology to 
produce cultivated meat is the perspective of producing meat in a more 
sustainable way than today. A few studies have estimated the environ-
mental impacts of cultivated meat using prospective life cycle assess-
ment (LCA) methods (Mattick et al., 2015; Sinke et al., 2023; Smetana 
et al., 2015; Tuomisto, Allan, & Ellis, 2022; Tuomisto & Teixeira de 
Mattos, 2011). These studies have high uncertainties as they rely on 
modelling of large-scale cultivated meat production facilities, for which 
no data are currently available. The studies estimated the environmental 
impacts of cultivated meat along the life cycle of the production process 
from resource extraction up to the factory gate, including processes such 
as input production (medium ingredients, energy, scaffolds and bio-
reactors and infrastructure in some of the studies), cell culturing pro-
cesses, wastewater treatment and cleaning of the bioreactors. All of the 
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studies used 100-year time frame for estimating the climate impact (i.e. 
global warming potential within 100 years, GWP100). The studies 
included food grade medium ingredients, such as amino acids and 
glucose. When comparisons were made with conventionally produced 
meat, the livestock systems had similar system boundaries from resource 
extraction up to the farm gate. The carbon sequestration of pasture lands 
is not included in the calculations. However, as ruminant meat pro-
duction requires more land area than cultivated meat production, the 
replacement of livestock meat with cultivated meat would free the 
current permanent pastureland areas for other uses. In some areas that 
would enable growing more trees on the old pasture lands, which would 
fix more carbon into the vegetation and soils (Hayek et al., 2020). The 
soil carbon stock changes are usually not included in LCA studies due to 
high uncertainties regarding the carbon flows. Even the soils at ruminant 
livestock farms are not always net carbon sinks in the Nordics (Henryson 
et al., 2022). The results show that the production of cell culture me-
dium and energy requirements of the bioreactors have the highest 
contribution to the environmental impacts. Therefore, the sources of 
medium ingredients and the bioprocess design are the most important 
factors determining the environmental impacts. In addition, the quan-
tities and composition of medium are highly uncertain and have high 
influence on the environmental outcomes. Thus, also improving the ef-
ficiency of nutrient use and recycling of used medium can reduce the 
environmental impacts. Due to the differences in the process design 
included in the LCA studies, the results for carbon footprint of cultivated 
meat have a wide variation between the studies (Fig. 4). 
Importantly, the environmental impacts of cultivated meat also 
depend on the production location. For instance, the energy sources for 
electricity and the associated environmental impacts vary highly be-
tween different countries and regions. Similarly, water scarcity impact 
depends on location, as the weighting factors used to describe the impact 
of using a unit of water ranges between 1 and 100 depending on the 
availability in the region (Boulay et al., 2019). Biodiversity impacts are 
dependent on the species richness of the natural state of the land, which 
is significantly higher, for instance, in the Amazon area compared to 
Nordic countries. The environmental impacts of conventional meat 
production further vary highly in different countries and production 
systems. Even the production systems in Nordic countries are versatile 
ranging from extensively grazed beef production systems in the high-
lands of Norway to intensive pork production in Denmark. 
3.1. Cell culture medium 
The main challenges regarding the development of culture medium 
include the replacement of FBS and lowering the overall cost. In terms of 
environmental impacts, the production of synthetic amino acids have 
high impact contributing over 50% to most environmental footprints of 
the whole cultured medium production (Tuomisto et al., 2022). 
Serum-free medium can reduce the environmental impacts of culture 
medium production by 30–50%, but the net benefits depend on how the 
serum-free medium support the cell growth (Tuomisto et al., 2022). FBS 
contain factors that affect cell adhesion, such as fibronectin, laminin and 
albumin. Also, FBS has a high level of specific growth factors and cy-
tokines, which specifically affect the cell growth and proliferation. Also, 
specific sugars and amino acids supports the cell growth. Finally, hor-
mone factors and transport proteins are necessary components that 
ensure cell viability. Animal-based ingredients naturally contain many 
of these ingredients (Lee et al., 2022). Therefore, the use of animal-based 
by-products from slaughterhouses and food industry could provide 
culture medium ingredients supporting a circular bio economy. Pre-
liminary results of the environmental impacts of protein hydrolysates, 
however, show that plant-based sources have lower impacts compared 
to animal-based sources (Karinen, Beate Rønning, & Tuomisto, 2023). 
Hence, plant-based protein hydrolysates could be used as source of 
amino acids further reducing the environmental impact of culture me-
dium production (Sinke et al., 2023). 
The contribution of glucose on the environmental impacts of culture 
medium production vary between 10 and 30% depending on the impact 
category (Tuomisto et al., 2022). Typically, glucose is obtained from 
maize or sugar cane that are not commonly grown in large parts of the 
Nordic countries. Potatoes, grain crops and sugar beet as well as 
side-streams of food and forest industries could provide potential sus-
tainable sources for glucose in the Nordic countries (Karinen et al., 2023; 
Upcraft et al., 2021). Preliminary findings show that especially potatoes 
and lignocellulosic production of sawdust could have lower environ-
mental impacts compared to glucose production from maize (Karinen 
et al., 2023). 
3.2. Energy sources 
As cultivated meat production is highly energy intensive, the source 
of electricity has a major impact on the environmental footprint of the 
products. For example, the use of solar or wind energy instead of the 
average electricity grid energy for cultivated meat production processes 
and production of amino acids and glucose, would reduce the climate 
impacts of cultivated meat production by 30% the United Kingdom (UK) 
(Tuomisto et al., 2022). Further reductions in the climate impacts would 
require the use of low emission energy sources also in other input pro-
duction processes. In the UK, the CO2 emission intensity of electricity 
grid in 2021 was 254 g/KWh (O’Sullivan, 2022) whereas in Sweden it 
was only 9 g/KWh, Norway 27 g/KWh, Finland 77 g/KWh and Denmark 
130 g/KWh (EEA, 2022; Nowtricity, 2022). As cultivated meat pro-
duction has higher electricity requirements compared to conventional 
Fig. 4. Climate impact of conventionally produced meat produced in Sweden 
(source: RISE Food climate database, 2021) and cultivated meat production 
(error bar shows the range from the minimum and maximum values found in 
published LCA studies of cultivated meat, and the bar shows the mid-point 
value: Mattick et al., 2015; Sinke et al., 2023; Tuomisto and Teixeira de Mat-
tos, 2011; Tuomisto et al., 2022a). 
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produced meat the expansion of cultivated meat production would in-
crease the demand for energy. The provision of low emission energy 
sources or optimized energy utilization is a requirement for achieving a 
low carbon footprint for cultivated meat (Lynch & Pierrehumbert, 
2019). Therefore, capacity of expanding low emission electricity supply 
in Nordic countries is a key for sustainable cultivated meat production. 
As cultivated meat production requires less agricultural land compared 
to conventional meat, the land area released from agriculture could 
potentially be used for sustainable energy production. 
3.3. Integration with sustainable farming 
The sustainability of cultivated meat production could be further 
improved by integrating the production with sustainable farming sys-
tems and renewable energy generation (Koppelmaki et al., 2019). 
Cultivated meat production facilities at farms or near farms would 
provide possibilities for efficient recycling of nutrients and reduce the 
transportation of inputs. The cultured medium ingredients, such as 
amino acids from legumes and glucose from potatoes, could be produced 
at farms using sustainable agricultural practices. Grass leys could also be 
potential source for both amino acids and glucose. Side-streams of crop 
production and other locally sourced side-streams from forestry or food 
industry could be processed for culture medium ingredients. The farm 
would also produce sustainable energy, such as biogas, solar energy or 
wind for the farm operations and bioreactors. Especially, biogas pro-
duction from grass-clover lays would also help to improve the nutrient 
self-sufficiency and improve soil properties. The residual nutrients from 
the biogas and cultivated meat production could be used as fertilizers at 
the fields. 
The issue with high hygiene standards and food safety may limit the 
possibilities of cultivated meat production at farms. However, similar 
environmental benefits and efficient recycling of nutrients could also be 
achieved when the cultivated meat production facilities are placed near 
the farms even if they were not part of the same enterprise. The optimal 
location for the cultivated meat production would depend also on the 
proximity to the consumers. In many Nordic countries, the agricultural 
production locates relatively far from most of the consumers. In these 
cases, the cultivated meat production facilities may be more efficiently 
located closer to the consumption as transportation of the inputs may be 
more cost effective than that of the final products. In urban environ-
ments, vertical farming or urban farming systems could potentially 
provide opportunities for nutrient recycling. 
4. The ethical aspects and value-choices of cultivated meat 
Although technological potentials and environmental impacts asso-
ciated with cultivated meat form the starting points for the develop-
ment, the final products will be introduced to extant Nordic food 
cultures. In addition values and ethical issues are arguably among the 
major drivers of the development of cultivated meat and other food- 
technological developments (Kaiser & Algers, 2016). Given that inno-
vation and development of industrial products is highly cost-intensive, 
investments are a function of expected market-returns. These are 
dependent on consumers’ willingness to pay for it and eat cultivated 
meat. Nevertheless, investments are made now, and the returns are a 
good way into the future. What follows from this is a relatively high 
degree of uncertainty: even if we know something about consumers’ 
(and producers’) attitudes to cultivated meat at present, we cannot 
easily extrapolate from these data into the future. Attitudes may change. 
What we do know, however, is that the future attitude will be a reflec-
tion of underlying value-commitments, which in turn have a relatively 
long permanence and life (Kaiser, 2022). We can frequently change a 
specific attitude to certain aspects of life or goods on the market, while 
we cannot with the same frequency change our underlying values, 
which inform these attitudes without threatening our personal and so-
cial identity. 
The values are an element of our food identities. Here a historical and 
socio-cultural observation needs to be made. One may reasonably as-
sume that roughly half a century ago our food identities were mainly a 
function of three to four parameters, most probably: tradition, locality, 
availability and price. These parameters were basically, not much 
affected by individual choices and were typically shared within larger 
groups of similar socio-cultural and regional background. This has 
changed dramatically as food identities reflect the fragmentation in our 
Nordic socio-cultural surroundings; they often define niche consump-
tion patterns and are highly influenced by value-based ethical convic-
tions of the individual (Herdoiza et al., 2022). 
It is for this reason that a closer look at ethical issues can provide us 
with some guidance on framing conditions for developing cultivated 
meat. We shall examine some of them. They are: (1) animal welfare, (2) 
sustainability and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, (3) food equity and 
food sovereignty, (4) naturalness and techno-skepticism, (5) nutrition 
and food safety, and (6) issues of global justice. 
4.1. Animal welfare 
One of the strongest positive drivers for the development of culti-
vated meat is the animal welfare perspective. During the last decades, 
animal welfare has become a major political factor in food production 
and consumption in the industrialized world (Cornish et al., 2016). For 
example, pictures of battery caged hens in egg production, the 
confinement of pigs in metal-barred crates, packed transports of sheep 
across the country or the industrialized mass-killing of cows in slaugh-
terhouses have enraged the public opinion and brought about massive 
criticism, and to a certain extent regulatory measures (Sødring et al., 
2020). Economic and nutritious qualities alone would not account for 
consumer attitudes to food, but that concern for the quality of life of the 
animal before slaughtering would count as a driver towards acceptance. 
This is a marker of what has also been called “political consumerism” 
(Stolle et al., 2005; Ward & de Vreese, 2011). Ultimately, cultivated 
meat has a definite market advantage; no (or nearly no) animal suffering 
or killing for obtaining cells for the production. This does not mean that 
all existing animal welfare issues as faced in existing and agricultural 
practices will disappear. It is only focused on those products that will 
result from in-vitro meat. A consumer of this meat will have the assur-
ance that no animal had to be killed to provide for the hamburger, 
sausage or chicken in-vitro meat consumed. There might still be a small 
number of animals which will be supplying the necessary growth me-
dium, possibly from side-streams of conventional food production. 
However, this is a negligible amount compared to the conventional 
production of these products. Potentially this could even be an argument 
for a segment of vegetarians to accept cultivated meat as food, while 
some vegetarians may still object to the centrality of meat in our diet. 
However, developing cultivated meat will mainly be targeted at a sec-
tion of current meat-eaters, namely those who feel uncomfortable about 
the implications of their dietary preferences for the animals (Bryant & 
Barnett, 2020). Cultivated meat products will realistically not be a 
replacement of all other and more conventional ways of meat produc-
tion, which means that positive animal welfare issues arise only for the 
market segment that consumes these products. 
4.2. Sustainability 
One of the current ethical dilemmas is bringing food production into 
a more sustainable framework. A significant amount of global GHG- 
emissions is caused by our current livestock production (and to a 
certain extent its consumption patterns as well) (O’Mara, 2011). Meat 
consumption is also on the rise globally as many countries experience 
economic growth, especially China. The global human population is 
expected to rise to up to 10 billion by the year 2050 and the resulting 
need to produce and distribute enough food for this number of people. 
The global Human Trophic Level is steadily on the rise, mainly due to 
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ever increasing meat consumption in China and India, and more or less 
stagnating levels of meat consumption in the industrialized countries 
like in the EU and USA (Bonhommeau et al., 2013). In this context, 
switching to cultivated meat production could potentially reduce the 
need for agricultural land, freshwater, antibiotics, polluting chemicals 
(herbicides and pesticides) and resources for feed (Tuomisto, 2019). It 
should be noticed that antibiotics might still be needed in some pro-
duction systems and that herbicide and pesticides could still be used in 
plant-based production of glucose. However, all extrapolation into the 
future environmental benefits is still uncertain as described in previous 
section. In particular, one needs to look more specifically at certain 
products. The feed conversion rate for salmon aquaculture or chicken for 
instance is rather good, and when this should compare to the currently 
high energy amount which goes into the production of cultivated meat 
the net result is certainly not clear. Thus, there are admittedly a number 
of presuppositions which one needs to make in order for this accounting 
to go through. Yet, when examining the global GHG emissions from 
ruminants and when assuming that renewable energy sources can go 
into the production of cultivated meat then one may assume a sustain-
ability account in favour of cultivated meat. 
4.3. Food equity and sovereignty 
One of the current problems in our food systems is the inequality of 
access to food. This has been aggravated recently through the COVID-19 
pandemic and the war in Ukraine, which both affected global supply 
lines. What we witness is an increase in food insecurity, and this inse-
curity is disproportionately divided among continents and countries. To 
improve food equity the call for more food sovereignty is increasing 
(Edelman et al., 2014). Even in affluent countries, like in Northern 
Europe, voices can now be heard to counter the trend to globalized food 
webs by more reliance on locally produced food. Given the sustainability 
and environmental aspects, people seek to increase alternative food 
production systems as, for instance, organic food production. This 
combined with a trend towards local production rather than imports 
would arguably increase food sovereignty (Diehl et al., 2020). One has 
to add that all such statements are currently nothing but statements of 
mere belief, but a belief apparently shared by many consumers in the 
industrialized world. Local food products see a rise in demand in Europe, 
for instance in local food markets and festivals. How this will position 
cultivated meat remains an open question. It seems to depend on 
whether the producing industry would be from the region and therefore 
positively identifiable by the consumers. However, currently this is 
assumedly not the most likely path for further developments. 
4.4. Naturalness and techno-skepticism 
One of the main obstacles to novel foods, like GMO-food, is the 
perception of “unnatural” or the “natural-is-better-heuristic” (Siegrist 
et al., 2018; Siegrist & Hartmann, 2020a). This was often associated 
with an emotional “yuk-factor” that consumers direct at some industrial 
food products. It may be speculated that it will be difficult to overcome 
this feeling, as it is impossible to accept for many that very little of our 
food is actually “natural”. The appeal to cold rationality is of very little 
help when our food identities are such a complex mixture of tradition 
and values. From the point of view of ethical theory the argument based 
on lacking “naturalness” is supposedly weak (Kaiser, 2005), while this 
does not necessarily its power on a segment of consumers. Clearly, 
cultivated meat will not be able to absorb any such attribute of natu-
ralness, and for the sake of integrity, it should not attempt it either. 
Arguably, it is also a matter of trust (Kaiser & Algers, 2017). In short 
supply-lines we can identify the producer, identify the resources that 
went into the production, and associate a person (e.g. the farmer) with 
the food. Then we know who is accountable for the quality of the food. 
Nevertheless, this responsibility seems to dissolve in industrial pro-
duction. Industrial branding, food certifications, and clear labelling are 
mechanisms to overcome this potential distrust, but they have not 
managed to replace the felt asymmetry among small-scale and big food 
producers. Furthermore, many people would prefer a risk-aversive 
attitude to food since food enters our bodies. Industrial processes are 
typically very complex, and we always suspect that we humans are not 
always on top of these processes. Natural processes even though com-
plex too, have served us well for thousands of years, and thus come with 
a certain safety bonus. 
4.5. Nutrition and food safety 
One of the pressing issues related to our diet is questions related to 
our health. It is an obvious fact that malnutrition has negative impacts 
on health. Likewise, over-nutrition has serious negative health effects 
like obesity, coronary diseases and diabetes. Unfortunately, nutritional 
science is beset with countless uncertainties still (Brown et al., 2014; 
Ioannidis, 2013; Schoenfeld & Ioannidis, 2013). Yet, we do have a pretty 
good idea that less red meat and more vegetables and fruit would be 
rather beneficial (Habumugisha et al., 2023; Kaiser, 2021). But what are 
the “dangerous” substances in this diet? Hopefully science will come up 
with some answers here. If we learn more about it, then cultivated meat 
may be produced without these substances. It should be noticed that 
initial work exploring this has been done in the US.6 
However, every once and a while there are news about unsafe in-
gredients in our diet. Food safety is a matter of concern among con-
sumers. This is often the result of unsafe supply lines and sub-standard 
producers (Unnevehr, 2022). Again, cultivated meat might benefit here 
due to a more controlled environment during production. 
4.6. Issues of global justice 
Approximately, 70% of all consumed human food is still produced by 
small-scale producers, most of this in the developing world (Lowder 
et al., 2021). Typically, it is these small-scale farms and the small coastal 
fishery boats that contribute to our regional cultures and landscapes. 
Thus, they are regarded as important assets maintaining our cultural 
identity whilst increasingly threatened by big and multi-national com-
panies. The top four corporations’ control over 70% of the seed and 
agrichemicals industry. When it comes to animal genetics in chickens, 
the top three companies control almost 100% and with respect to swine 
they control almost 50% of the business. Fertilizers are also controlled 
with over 50% by the top five corporations. The top six companies 
control 52% of the business for farm equipment. New actors are now 
entering the stage: asset management companies, tech companies, data 
processing companies, and E-commerce retailers (Mooney et al., 2021). 
This massive intrusion into the food webs threatens traditional 
small-scale food production. All of this comes with a twitch: ownership 
in these global corporations is mostly among shareholders in the rich 
world, while the earnings are made among the poor. This triggers the 
notion of a global inequity in the food business. 
Producing cultivated meat is both capital-, knowledge- and resource- 
intensive. The stage seems set for another increase in global inequity in 
the food business. How to combine the production of cultivated meat 
with the maintenance of our regional culture-landscapes and the sur-
vival of small-scale food producers is still an open question. 
5. Cultivated meat perceptions of Nordic consumers, political 
stakeholders and livestock farmers 
Cultivated meat is a rather futuristic food item for most people in the 
Nordic countries. Some have heard about it, but most do not have a clear 
conception of cultivated meat (Klockner et al., 2022). Cultivated meat is 
6 https://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/media/document/Cultured% 
20meat%20hazard%20identification%20final_0.pdf. 
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also a challenging research topic from the social science perspective. 
Products are not yet available on the Nordic market and people have not 
tasted them. Cultivated meat tends to carry a technologically advanced 
image that may summon imaginative and overtly positive expectations 
but more often negative and unfounded associations or even fears. 
Although social science research on cultivated meat may appear pre-
mature, critical and transparent analyses exploring societal sentiments 
are needed. Lessons from genetically modified organisms’ adoption and 
resistance show that companies’ efforts for producing the common good 
are not enough, dismissal of consumer activism may lead to unfav-
ourable outcomes and putting the focus on responding to negative 
perceptions associated with the novel technology may be an adverse 
strategy (Mohorcich & Reese, 2019). 
This section reviews the perceptions of three Nordic stakeholder 
groups: consumers, political actors, and livestock farmers (Fig. 5). These 
groups have been only scarcely studied in the Nordic context. However, 
the consumers’ role is clear. Their acceptance or willingness to buy, try 
or eat cultivated meat will determine the success of the novel foods in 
the long run. The political actors are well advised to meet the con-
sumers’ or citizens’ demands but they also exert significant power to 
advance or hinder the development of the novel food products. They 
reflect the sentiments of their voters as do policy organisations’ repre-
sentatives that emphasise their supporters’ views (Chiles, 2013). Polit-
ical stakeholders set societal agendas, engage in direct and indirect 
lobbying, steer the usage of public funding, participate to law and 
regulation drafting on regional, state and European Union levels, and 
can start or advance development and assessment projects for or against 
cellular agriculture (Moritz et al., 2022). 
In addition, conventional livestock farmers will probably be a 
stakeholder group impacted most adversely, if cultivated meat 
production can be scaled and the products reach the mass-market stage. 
Citizen sentiments tend to favour conventional farmers, especially in 
rural areas. However, the farmers will potentially be a significant 
stakeholder group also in terms of producing input materials for cellular 
agriculture such as glucose and amino acids, or energy from field- 
cultured crops (Chen & Zhang, 2015). Conventional livestock farmers 
can also provide stem or SCs for cultivated meat and fat production or 
engage in local cultivated meat production by setting up small-scale 
bioreactors on their farms (Newton & Blaustein-Rejto, 2021). It is sug-
gested that small-scale production of cultivated meat on a village-level 
would be particularly promising from technological but also from soci-
etal acceptance perspectives (van der Weele & Tramper, 2014). 
5.1. The Nordic consumers and cultivated meat 
Consumer perceptions and their acceptance of cultivated meat are 
relatively well studied (Bryant & Barnett, 2018, 2020; Pakseresht et al., 
2022). Generally, 40–70% of European and North American re-
spondents would be willing to taste cultivated meat (Bryant & Dillard, 
2019; Bryant et al., 2019; Dupont et al., 2022; Francekovic et al., 2021; 
Mancini & Antonioli, 2019; Weinrich et al., 2020; Wilks & Phillips, 
2017). Consumers in Finland, Norway and Denmark fall within this 
range as 57,7% (28,1%) of Danish, 58,2% (28,1%) of Norwegians and 
65,3% (37,2%) of Finns would taste (or eat regularly) cultivated meat 
(Klockner et al., 2022). The differences between the countries are sta-
tistically significant, showing that the Danish respondents were least 
willing to accept cultured proteins compared to the Finns and the 
Norwegians. 
The evidence for the links between socio-demographic factors and 
the acceptance of cultivated meat varies. In general, the results from 
Fig. 5. Summary of stakeholders’ perceptions about cultivated meat in the Nordic context.  
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several studies imply that younger people, men, and liberal leftists are 
more receptive to cultivated meat, as are the highly educated and people 
with higher income (Slade, 2018; Wilks & Phillips, 2017). The demand 
for cultivated meat tends to rise when the price drops (Carlsson et al., 
2022; Mancini & Antonioli, 2019), but almost half of the Swedish re-
spondents would not swap a traditional hamburger patty for cultivated 
meat even if they would get it for free (Carlsson et al., 2022). A survey 
study exploring the acceptance, perceived naturalness, and evoked 
disgust of cultivated meat in ten countries concluded that Swedes’ 
acceptance was relatively low (acceptance was lower in France, Ger-
many, and the US). Moreover, cultivated meat was perceived as 
reasonably unnatural (only the French perceived cultivated meat as 
more unnatural) and Sweden ranked in the middle-range in evoked 
disgust between the US and China (Siegrist & Hartmann, 2020b). 
Consumers’ future expectations associated with cultivated meat tend 
to be rather dismal. Vinnari and Tapio (Vinnari & Tapio, 2009) studied 
future images of meat consumption in 2030 with a Delphi study in 2009 
in Finland. They enquired whether “laboratory-grown artificial meat” 
will have replaced conventional meats in 2030. Both consumers but 
especially experts expressed that the claim seemed very undesirable or 
very improbable. However, there was significant variation in the images 
of meat substitutes, which ranged from the very negative perspectives of 
the traditional group valuing conventional agriculture to the very pos-
itive views held by the vegetarian group (Vinnari & Tapio, 2009). 
Similar and quite negative perceptions resulted from a study that 
examined online news comments in Finland (Ryynanen & Toivanen, 
2022). The results show that the Finnish online commenters pondered 
why cultivated meat would be necessary (environmental, animal well-
being and healthiness considerations), what would be the anticipated 
product characteristics of cultivated meat (naturalness, potential risks 
and sensory qualities), and how cultivated meat is perceived to influence 
societies (the role of actors, decision-making and potential inequities 
caused by cultivated meat). The uncertainties surrounding these themes 
tend to lead to conflicting interpretations, which may prevent the 
achievement of a shared definition of cultivated meat and complicate 
the establishment of cultivated meat as an accepted food (Ryynanen & 
Toivanen, 2022). However, the results show also that these nine themes 
discussed by the Finnish online commenters describe the emerging 
meanings of cultivated meat and all meanings were utilised in argu-
ments both for and against culture meat. 
A study among omnivore and flexitarian participants from the 
Netherlands and Finland show that cultivated meat is still perceived as 
an unnatural and expensive option when compared with plant-based 
meat substitutes and hybrid meat products (van Dijk et al., 2023). 
Klockner et al. (2022) concluded that the people in Finland, Norway and 
Denmark have neutral to slightly positive attitudes toward cultured 
protein products such as meat, fish, or dairy. The comparison of these 
countries indicates that an increased familiarity might improve accep-
tance, males and younger people tend to be particularly positive 
whereas vegans and vegetarians evaluate products of cellular agricul-
ture favourably (Klockner et al., 2022). The anticipated attitude change 
profiles show that meat-eating identity, social norms, environmental 
concern, and market structural or cultural differences in the countries 
resulted in the clearest profile differences whilst health identity, age, 
innovativeness, income, education, and gender had only minor effects 
(Klockner et al., 2022). In addition, the Klockner et al. (2022) indicated 
that consumers from three countries would react negatively if product 
characteristics such as appearance, texture, taste, and smell of cultivated 
meat would be worse compared to conventionally produced meat. 
Preliminary results from ongoing research suggest that there are 
three major cultivated meat consumer clusters in Finland. These “opti-
mists”, “moderates” and “sceptics” differ in their attitude towards the 
environment, conventional animal farming and cultured proteins. 77% 
of optimists, 23% of moderates and 18% of sceptics are in favour of 
cultured proteins. Optimists and moderates share environmental con-
cerns, but moderates and sceptics tend to perceive innovative foods and 
the impacts of cultured proteins more negatively. Positive attitudes to-
wards cultured proteins are significantly related to social norms and 
beliefs about the global and national benefits of cultured proteins. 
Environmental concerns tend not to predict the willingness of the clus-
ters to use cultured proteins, but climate impacts are the most 
mentioned benefit of cultured proteins. Major concerns identified in the 
ongoing study were associated with dependency on big companies, 
negative impacts on Finnish agriculture, sensory properties of cultured 
proteins, use of genetically modified organisms in production and 
perceived (un)naturalness. 
5.2. Political and policy stakeholders and cultivated meat 
Research considering perceptions of political and policy stakeholders 
in the Nordic countries are non-existing and peer-reviewed international 
studies are scarce. Chiles’ (Chiles, 2013) study is an exception. It ex-
amines the ideologies of political stakeholders and the potential political 
consequences of ambiguous goods such as cultivated meat. The studied 
stakeholders tend to rely upon stable institutional ideologies such as the 
Techtopian, Green Luddite and Work Machine ideologies that explain 
potential choices for or against cultured products (Chiles, 2013). The 
Techtopians perceive technology as the route to societal well-being, 
assume that consumers are not aware of the cellular agriculture devel-
opment and become aware once these products are introduced on the 
market. The Green Luddites are environmentalists supporting the nat-
ural order, biodiversity and traditional landscape, and they tend to be 
against unsustainable conventional meat production whilst preferring 
local small-scale farming solutions. The Work Machine ideology em-
phasizes economic growth achieved through productivity and wealth as 
well as business-as-usual methods or conventional meat production. 
Moritz et al. (Moritz et al., 2022) studied 13 career politicians’ and 
policy stakeholders’ perceptions about cultivated meat in Germany. The 
study utilised the transformative innovation policy (TIP) approach and 
identified 22 themes from the interview data. The informants addressed 
potential bottlenecks for cultivated meat development such as current 
agricultural practices or the current food system regime hindering the 
progress, unfavourable prospects or anticipated artificial and 
pre-decided image for the future and straight threats or disadvantages 
for farmers and consumers from cultivated meat production. They also 
considered drivers for cultivated meat development such as increased 
product diversity and production transparency, the potential roles of 
supply and retail sectors in advancing the development of cultivated 
meat and external benefits such as environmental and health benefits 
provided by cultivated meat. 
Moritz et al. (2023) study included additional interviews from 12 
political stakeholders from Finland. The study compares the German 
and Finnish stakeholders’ perceptions and utilises the multi-level 
perspective (MLP) framework in showcasing how the current food sys-
tem could transform into a more sustainable system. Socio-technological 
landscape pressures such as the climate change put pressure on the 
current animal-based food regime from above whereas niche in-
novations such as cultivated meat offer novel and more sustainable food 
alternatives that challenge the regime from below. 
The results of this study suggest that the perceptions of the in-
formants in Finland vary from opportunistic to sceptical (Moritz et al., 
2023). Some of the opportunistic perceptions include that cultivated 
meat could have the power to solve current challenges of livestock 
production or that cultivated meat could be eaten without guilt associ-
ated with conventional livestock products. Sceptical perceptions include 
that cultivated meat is perceived as a technocratic solution to a problem 
that could also be dissolved with increased usage of alternative 
plant-based proteins. Moreover, the informants tended to agree that 
cultivated meat is not a threat to current livestock production or local 
food traditions as the Finnish informants did not believe in the rapid 
development of cultivated meat nor transformation towards a cellular 
agricultural system. Moreover, the stakeholders’ perceptions were used 
M.K. Rasmussen et al.                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
Trends in Food Science & Technology 144 (2024) 104336
12
in constructing potential transition pathways for cultivated meat. 
“Technocratic stagnation” pathway refers to a development where the 
novel food technologies fail to deliver products such as cultivated meat 
timely, “promising circumstances” pathway is characterised by external 
pressures, support, and moderate success but cultivated meat remaining 
an additional niche product in the market whereas in “rapid advance-
ment” pathway cultivated meat development would be fast, partly 
utopian and replace the unsustainable proteins in the market (Moritz 
et al., 2023). 
5.3. Livestock farmers and cultivated meat 
Similarly, to political stakeholders’ views, livestock farmers’ per-
ceptions about cellular agriculture are only marginally studied. How-
ever, research considering the potential impacts of cellular agriculture 
on livestock farmers’ practices and livelihoods is needed as the potential 
market entry of these novel products may radically change the con-
ventional food system (Chiles et al., 2021; Gerhardt et al., 2020; Reis 
et al., 2020, 2021; Saavoss, 2019). 
A recent study examined various stakeholders’ perceptions regarding 
cultivated meat in the US (Newton & Blaustein-Rejto, 2021). Although 
the informants in the study indicated that the cultivated meat produc-
tion could create new employment opportunities, improve food security, 
and provide health benefits, potentially adverse developments were also 
discussed. Threats such as the loss of income for livestock producers or 
the exclusion of farmers by transitioning into the cultivated meat pro-
duction were raised as only a few large companies were anticipated to 
overtake cultivated meat development (Newton & Blaustein-Rejto, 
2021). Helliwell and Burton (Helliwell & Burton, 2021) identified 
similar threats and called them narrative silences. These are currently 
missing discussions of what happens to rural communities and the 
development of the countryside in a situation where cultivated meat 
replaces conventional livestock farming. Agricultural employment and 
consolidation of food production (Bryant, 2020) are pressing questions 
when the impacts of cellular agriculture are evaluated from the rural 
perspective. 
Livestock farmers may need to find replacement production in a 
situation where products from cellular agriculture are adopted widely 
and start replacing foods from livestock in the future. According to 
Newton and Blaustein-Rejto (Newton & Blaustein-Rejto, 2021), there 
are several options for farmers to choose from: producing ingredients or 
input materials for cellular agriculture, raising animals for cell sources 
for cultivated meat or producing cell-cultured foods at the farm. In 
addition, farmers could provide ecosystem services, transition from 
farming to forestry, use their land for regenerative pasture-based high 
nature value animal production or produce renewable energy at the 
farm (Newton & Blaustein-Rejto, 2021). 
A qualitative study based on 22 semi-structured livestock farmer 
interviews in Finland explore farmers’ perceptions of cellular agricul-
ture and their potential roles in the novel food system (Raty et al., 2023). 
The results indicate that the farmers address various themes. They try to 
position themselves and farmers in general in cellular agriculture, they 
ponder the roles of farmed animals in cellular agriculture and try to 
picture the potential relationships between conventional and cellular 
agriculture. The informants also discussed the market potential of 
cellular agriculture, needs from the rural development perspective and 
how to support farmers in a potential transition from the conventional to 
cellular agriculture system (Raty et al., 2023). 
The themes reflect the interviewed farmers’ current situation, 
anticipated uncertainties, potential consequences, and the drivers for 
the development of cellular agriculture. Cultivated meat and other 
cellular agriculture products, along with their production technologies 
were identified as being simultaneously a challenge and an opportunity 
for conventional livestock farmers and rural areas. However, the inter-
viewed Finnish farmers evaluated the short-term potential of cellular 
agriculture as implausible or idealistic. Against the researchers’ 
expectations, the interviewed farmers were neutral or slightly positive 
about the novel developments in the agricultural sector. Many of them 
emphasised that agriculture is a sector under constant development and 
novel technologies have been introduced regularly (Raty et al., 2023). 
The interviewed farmers perceived cellular agriculture yet another link 
in the continuous chain of novel agrotechnologies such as tractors, ro-
bots, computer-assisted farm management tools and smart farming so-
lutions. However, they also emphasised that the current food system 
structures are rather powerful and stable. In addition, the development 
state of cellular agriculture technologies was perceived as immature and 
speculative: the solutions of cellular agriculture were perceived as 
powerless and currently unable to match conventional livestock pro-
duction volumes and compete with the subsidised prices anytime soon 
(Raty et al., 2023). 
6. Conclusion 
There is an overarching likelihood that cultivated meat will be 
commercially available to the Nordic consumers in the future. However, 
before that will happen there are several issues that needs to be solved 
within the context of the Nordic countries, as outlined in this review. In 
general, this includes, solutions for cell culturing that includes the 
willingness of Nordic consumers to accept e.g. GMO. Moreover, the 
specific additives for cell culturing should utilize the availability of 
materials from the Nordic countries e.g. for growth promoting factors 
and scaffolds. Together this approach will also improve the environ-
mental, societal and ethical side of cultivated meat in the Nordic 
countries. Hence, there is a need for a discussion on several technical 
aspects, such as the acceptance of cell source, scaffold material and 
media composition. All with the aspect of an up-scaled production. 
Likewise, it should also be kept in mind that the final product with 
respect to sensory properties and nutritional composition should comply 
with the needs of the consumer and align with the Nordic nutrition 
recommendations (Blomhoff et al., 2023). One major factor for the 
development of cultivated meat is the question of sustainability. If 
cultivated meat is not produced in a sustainable way, it will not be 
accepted. Hence, aspects such as energy consumption, land use, raw 
material source and ethical aspect needs to be fulfilled for the Nordic 
consumer to accept cultivated meat. In addition, a mission-oriented 
transition to cellular agriculture and measures guaranteeing that no-
body is left behind needs to be designed and implemented in a spirit of 
the Nordic welfare societies. 
CRediT author statement 
Martin Krøyer Rasmussen: Conceptualization, Validation, Writing - 
Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing, Visualization. Julie Gold: 
Conceptualization, Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing. 
Matthias W Kaiser: Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Edit-
ing. Jana Moritz: Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing. 
Niko Raty: Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing. Sissel 
Beate Rønning: Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing. 
Toni Ryynanen: Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing. 
Stig Skrivergaard: Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing, 
Visualization. Anna Strom: Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & 
Editing. Margrethe Therkildsen: Conceptualization, Writing - Original 
Draft, Writing - Review & Editing. Hanna L. Tuomisto: Writing - 
Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing. Jette Feveile Young: 
Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing, Funding 
acquisition. 
Data availability 
Data will be made available on request. 
M.K. Rasmussen et al.                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
Trends in Food Science & Technology 144 (2024) 104336
13
Acknowledgements 
The consortium would like to acknowledge funding from NKJ 
Network “Cultured Meat – Nordic Take” 2020–2022, which enabled the 
building of this network. 
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