Cultured Meat and Seafood: A Key to a More Sustainable Food System?

Currently, our global food system is responsible for almost twenty percent of total greenhouse gas emissions; and yet, it is not adequately meeting nutritional needs worldwide. The emergence of the cultured meat (CM) and cultured seafood (CSF) industries opens up new opportunities to meet global demands while at the same time lowering the food industry’s environmental footprint.

Cultured meat (CM) and cultured seafood (CSF) are promising new sectors but numerous challenges are hampering their advancement on a larger scale. For example, the absence of up-to-date data regarding production technologies of such products, tools and metrics to assess their environmental and social impact together, lack of clarity on regulatory processes for these sectors, and the need to guarantee cost-competitive and circular solutions.

The FEASTS project, launched in December 2023, brings together 36 partners from around Europe to support the growth of this sector in an ethical, cost-competitive and sustainable way. The project aims to build a strong knowledge base on cultured meat and seafood industries as a prerequisite for evaluating their sustainability performance as well as designing a roadmap for their further development.

From an economic perspective, FEASTS will improve the competitiveness of the European CM/CSF sector. On a societal level, the project seeks to increase transparency and accessibility of information for consumers and to create guidelines for farmers and aquafarmers to develop alternative business models.

As part of the project, the CSCP will provide expertise on multistakeholder engagement and facilitate direct collaboration between project partners and key actors. It will additionally draw different persona profiles including detailed analysis of their interests, operational settings and needs, and the drivers for acceptance of CM/CSF products. The CSCP will also create a consumer living lab in Germany in which workshops and co-creation activities will be conducted to gain a better understanding of consumer viewpoints. Finally, the CSCP will also support the project with its expertise on sustainability assessment.

The project will run until 2026 is funded by the EU Horizon Programme.

For further questions, please contact Daniela Chaves.