Opportunities for Plant Biotechnology to Advance Plant-Based Meat and Clean Meat

Plant engineering and biotechnology present tremendous opportunities to improve the functionality of diverse plant-based ingredients for incorporation into alternatives to animal products. It is well known that animal agriculture poses massive problems for public health, the environment, and animal welfare, yet plant-based meat currently comprises only 0.3% of the U.S. meat market. Greater innovation in plant-based food technology is needed to develop alternatives that compete with animal products on taste, price, convenience, and functionality. Most plant-based products currently on the market are made primarily of soy protein or wheat protein, while hundreds of other plant protein sources are virtually unexplored for their functionality within plant-based meat formulations. This is due in part to a lack of targeted breeding or engineering efforts for these crops, which reduces their attractiveness to food scientists for exploration as novel protein ingredients in plant-based meat, egg, or dairy formulations. This talk will discuss how plant engineering approaches can improve upon these diverse plant protein crops’ functional traits such as palatability, protein quality, and structuring capability to enhance their performance in plant-based meat, egg, or dairy alternatives. Furthermore, the emerging field of clean meat – producing genuine animal meat by directly cultivating animal cells in culture – is exploring plant-based ingredients to fabricate scaffolding material for complex 3D tissues as well as to provide low-cost nutrients to support cell growth. The clean meat field can benefit from plant biotechnology approaches to produce these materials at large scale, low cost, and with tailored functional properties for applications in clean meat.