Dear Impossible Readers,
I live in Europe. Since this spring and summer, the fruits I have had were… well, disappointing. Not terrible. Just the kind of “meh, I can eat it” quality that makes you miss how good they used to be. How about you? If you think climate change does not affect you because you are not living next to a forest fire, in the middle of a drought, or under an extreme heat wave, you might be surprised. You can actually taste climate change. At least, I could these past two seasons. From strawberries and grapes to raspberries and peaches, everything tasted flatter, less vibrant, less alive.
If you have watched Snowpiercer, you probably remember the scene where the Executive Carriage enjoys “à la carte La Ferme”, while the rest of the train survives on “le menu Insectes Délicieux”. Laboratory-grown edible food brings a real-world version of that scene close, just more delightful.
Cell culture for plants, fish, dairy, and meat offers a powerful tool to fight climate change by reducing the environmental footprint of traditional agriculture. Growing fruits and vegetables in controlled laboratory conditions can use less water, less land, and fewer chemical inputs than conventional farming. Cultured dairy, meat and fish provide an alternative to livestock and aquaculture, which are major sources of greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, and overfishing. By culturing these in a laboratory, we can reduce methane emissions, avoid destructive land use, and diminish ocean exploitation, whilst tailoring the nutrients to our individual needs. With edible laboratories, we could feed the world more sustainably, efficiently, and intelligently.
Beyond sustainability, laboratory-grown food enables us to personalise nutrition, allergies, and medical treatment. By precisely controlling the growth environment, we could enrich plant, fish, and meat cells with specific nutrients or medicines tailored to individual needs. This includes varying concentrations of nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, proteins, and therapeutics for each individual. Research in edible cells is already underway and is currently being investigated for targeted drug delivery systems, deficiency prevention, and health support.
The next-in-line idea is the Edible Lab, a new kitchen machine that would allow us to grow our personalised piece of cheese, steak, potato, gambas, or the main ingredients of your favourite recipes.
Herbivore Edition
Cultured plant cells are making significant strides, with researchers successfully culturing various edible plant tissues in controlled environments. These advancements demonstrate a future where personalised, sustainable, and efficient food production is possible. Scientists have developed methods to culture plant cells, tissues, and organs outside of the whole plant, allowing precise control of growth in sterile, controlled settings. This enables biotechnological applications, such as producing natural compounds for pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and industrial applications. A carefully regulated environment is required to sustain the cells, including temperatures typically between 20-28°C (68°F to 82°F), high humidity around 85-95% to prevent rapid evaporation of the culture media, and if exposed to light (for photosynthesis) 1–5% CO₂ to support growth. While fully laboratory-grown crops are not yet common on supermarket shelves, current research demonstrates that edible plant cell cultures are viable, scalable, and could one day offer fresh, personalised produce year-round.
Piscivore Edition
Fish cell cultures are emerging as a promising alternative to traditional aquaculture, offering sustainable and ethical seafood production. Researchers have developed techniques to culture fish cells, such as in vitro muscle stem cells, allowing for the production of fish fillets without the need for fishing or farming. Fish cells are cold-blooded, so they grow optimally at 15–25°C (59–77°F), depending on species, in nutrient-rich, salt-adjusted media that mimic their natural osmotic environment. CO₂ levels are typically maintained at 5%, and humidity is controlled at 85–95% to prevent evaporation and ensure stability. The development of laboratory-grown fish not only addresses concerns related to overfishing and marine ecosystem degradation but also holds potential for providing a consistent and personalised seafood supply.
Carnivore Edition
Laboratory-grown meat is produced by cultivating animal muscle cells in vitro. Mammalian cells require a warm, stable environment to sustain, typically around 37°C (98.6°F), 5% CO₂ for proper pH buffering in the culture medium, and 85–95% humidity to prevent evaporation. These controlled conditions are crucial for the growth and differentiation of muscle stem cells into mature tissues. While challenges remain in scaling production and reducing costs, laboratory-grown meat offers significant environmental benefits, ethical advantages, and personalised protein content.
Lactivore Edition
Dairy is the frontier when it comes to rethinking our diets. Instead of culturing cow cells, most companies use a process called precision fermentation. In this approach, yeast, fungi, or bacteria are genetically programmed to produce real milk proteins such as casein and whey in bioreactors. These microbes ferment in a temperature-controlled vat (similar to beer brewing), feeding on sugars to produce proteins chemically identical to cow’s milk. After fermentation, the microbes are filtered out and the proteins are purified, leaving behind real dairy building blocks ready for cheese, yoghurt, and ice cream. This process reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 97%, and water usage by up to 99%, compared to traditional dairy.
A home kitchen machine that grows personalised cheese, steak, potato, or gambas will require a combination of scientific innovation, engineering, and careful regulation. While plant, fish, and meat cell cultures are advancing rapidly in laboratories, scaling them down to a safe, compact, and affordable home device remains a futuristic challenge. Researchers will need to optimise growth media, temperature, CO₂, humidity, and light conditions for each cell type while ensuring sterility and reproducibility. Advances in miniaturised bioreactors, sensors, and automation could make this feasible, but robust safety protocols and consumer guidelines will be essential. As scientific research progresses, the Edible Lab is slowly becoming a deliciously sustainable reality, bringing personalised, cultured meals from the laboratory straight to your kitchen.
Bon appétit,
Yours Possibly
Leading Companies
| Company (Country) | Expertise |
|---|---|
| Bluu Seafood (Germany) | Based near Hamburg, Bluu Seafood is producing Europe’s first tonne of laboratory-grown fish using 50-litre bioreactors filled with a nutrient-rich growth medium. Their products, including fish balls and breaded fingers, aim to provide sustainable seafood alternatives without allergens or contaminants. |
| Wildtype (USA) | San Francisco-based Wildtype has developed cultivated salmon, which has received FDA approval for public consumption. Their sushi-grade salmon is designed for raw preparations like sushi, crudo, and ceviche, offering a sustainable alternative to traditional fishing and farming practices. |
| Shiok Meats (Singapore) | Shiok Meats focuses on producing laboratory-grown shrimp, crab, and lobster. They aim to revolutionize the seafood industry by offering sustainable and ethical alternatives to traditional seafood production. |
| Eat Just (USA) | Known for its plant-based egg products, Eat Just is also venturing into laboratory-grown meat. Despite facing financial challenges, the company continues to innovate in the alternative protein space. |
| Ivy Farm Technologies (UK) | Ivy Farm Technologies specializes in bioengineering to produce sustainable laboratory-grown meat. Their focus is on creating cultivated meat products that are both ethical and environmentally friendly. |
| Vow (Australia) | Vow is pushing the boundaries of laboratory-grown meat by developing products from a variety of animal cells, including quail. Their approach aims to diversify the types of cultivated meat available to consumers. |
| NutriLeads (Netherlands) | NutriLeads is working on bioactives from carrot cell cultures for immune support. |
| Future Fields (Canada) | Future Fields are not working on plants directly, but they use fruit-fly cell culture technology for growth factors (sometimes paired with plants). |
| DTU Biosustain (Denmark) | At DTU Biosustain in Denmark, researchers are engineering plant cell “factories” to produce high-value compounds in bioreactors. |
| Plant Cell Technology Inc.(USA) | Plant Cell Technology Inc. supplies specialized culture tools and media that help plant cells grow efficiently in laboratory settings. |
| ORF Genetics (Iceland) | ORF Genetics grows barley cells in bioreactors to produce growth factors (used in cosmetics and could apply to food). |
| Perfect Day (USA) | Perfect Day produces animal-free whey protein using microbial fermentation. Their proteins are already in ice cream, milk, and cream cheese. |
| Remilk (Israel) | Remilk focuses on laboratory-grown milk proteins via yeast fermentation. |
| Formo (Germany) | Formo makes precision-fermented dairy proteins for cheese. |
| TurtleTree Labs (Singapore/USA) | TurtleTree Labs works on laboratory-grown human breast milk and bovine milk components. |
| New Culture (USA) | New Culture focuses on mozzarella from animal-free casein proteins. |
Further Reading
Ahmad, S.S., Younis, K., Lee, G.E., Baral, A., Shaikh, S., Lee, E.J., Ahmad, K., Hur, S.J. and Choi, I., 2025. The current scenario in cultured meat production and the challenges for industrialization. Food Bioscience, p.107286.
Broucke, K., Van Pamel, E., Van Coillie, E., Herman, L. and Van Royen, G., 2023. Cultured meat and challenges ahead: A review on nutritional, technofunctional and sensorial properties, safety and legislation. Meat science, 195, p.109006.
Gu, X., Wang, L., Liu, S., Valencak, T.G., Tan, L.P., Zhu, Y., Zhou, M. and Shan, T., 2025. The future of cultured meat: focusing on multidisciplinary, digitization, and nutritional customization. Food Research International, p.117005.
Häkkinen, S.T., Legay, S., Rischer, H., Renaut, J. and Guerriero, G., 2024. Plant cell factories: current and future uses of plant cell cultures. Frontiers in Plant Science, 15, p.1439261.
He, L., Zhao, C., Xiao, Q., Zhao, J., Liu, H., Jiang, J. and Cao, Q., 2023. Profiling the physiological roles in fish primary cell culture. Biology, 12(12), p.1454.
Jahir, N.R., Ramakrishna, S., Abdullah, A.A.A. and Vigneswari, S., 2023. Cultured meat in cellular agriculture: Advantages, applications and challenges. Food Bioscience, 53, p.102614.
Knychala, M.M., Boing, L.A., Ienczak, J.L., Trichez, D. and Stambuk, B.U., 2024. Precision fermentation as an alternative to animal protein, a review. Fermentation, 10(6), p.315.
Laizé, V., Rosa, J.T., Tarasco, M. and Cancela, M.L., 2022. Status, challenges, and perspectives of fish cell culture—Focus on cell lines capable of in vitro mineralization. Cellular and molecular approaches in fish biology, pp.381-404.
Lazaro, T.M., Alcântara Rocha, N.R.D., Levy-Pereira, N. and Moro de Sousa, R.L., 2024. Essential features of in vitro fish cell culture: an overview. Latin american journal of aquatic research, 52(2), pp.196-208.
Negi, S., Singh, P., Trivedi, V.L., Rawat, J.M. and Semwal, P., 2024. The current trends and research progress globally in the plant tissue culture: 90 years of investigation. Plant Cell, Tissue and Organ Culture (PCTOC), 157(3), p.73.
Rubio, N., Datar, I., Stachura, D., Kaplan, D. and Krueger, K., 2019. Cell-based fish: a novel approach to seafood production and an opportunity for cellular agriculture. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 3, p.435832.
Sekhar, M., Kaniganti, S., Babu, S., Singh, M. and Rout, S., 2023. Exploring progress and hurdles in plant tissue culture: a Comprehensive Review. Agriculture Archives: an International Journal.
To, K.V., Comer, C.C., O’Keefe, S.F. and Lahne, J., 2024. A taste of cell-cultured meat: a scoping review. Frontiers in Nutrition, 11, p.1332765.
Xu, J., PerezSanchez, P. and Sadravi, S., 2025. Unlocking the full potential of plant cell-based production for valuable proteins: Challenges and innovative strategies. Biotechnology Advances, p.108526.
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