t’s not every day you see companies rejoicing at an announcement that the government is figuring out how to regulate their product.
But that’s exactly what happened Thursday, March 7, when the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that they’d established a framework for regulating cell-based meat and poultry. The companies working on those products were thrilled.
Why? Well, cell-based meat companies have been arguing for years that their product is meat and should be regulated like meat from slaughterhouses. And they’ve pointed out that, for America’s “clean meat” industry to remain competitive with the clean meat industries in Israel, China, Singapore, the Netherlands, Japan, and other countries, companies need assurance that their product will be responsibly regulated by the USDA and the FDA.
Proponents believe cell-based meat has the potential to solve a bunch of the world’s biggest problems in one shot. They hope it can end animal cruelty on factory farms, combat climate change, reduce the use of antibiotics to keep animals alive in cramped conditions, and make it possible to feed a growing, increasingly wealthy global population.
But to do any of those things, consumer confidence is absolutely critical. If people don’t believe that cell-based meat products are safe, regulated, and healthy, then they’ll stick with slaughtered meat. “Consumers must have confidence that cultured meat products are safe for consumption and appropriately labeled,” said JUST, a meat-alternatives company, in a press release applauding the decision.
That’s how the cell-based meat industry ended up actively working to convince the US government to step in and exercise its regulatory authority — and that’s why they were encouraged by the government’s announcement. By stepping in to regulate cell-based meat, the government is treating it as food subject to the same oversight as the rest of our food. If cell-based meat can do half of what proponents hope, that’s a really big deal.
The new regulatory framework for cell-based meat The government’s announcement wasn’t very big in itself.
It’s a “formal agreement” between the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration about how to treat cell-based meat products. Basically, regulation of meat involves both agencies — the USDA overlooking food processing, labeling, and distribution, and the FDA conducting inspections and safety checks — and the regulation of cell-based meat will, too. This agreement outlines which problems are the jurisdiction of which agency, so they can develop further guidelines without stepping on each others’ toes.
“It provides a transparent path to market for cell-based meat products,” Elan Abrell, a senior regulatory specialist at the Good Food Institute, told me. The Good Food Institute is working on cell-based and plant-based meat alternatives, and has been active in the fight for rules like these.
The risk that the uncertainty would slow investment in cell-based meat research was clearly on the mind of USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue, who has spoken at length in the last year about how to regulate cell-based meat. “We don’t want this new technology to feel like they’ve got to go offshore or outside the United States to get a fair regulatory protocol,” he said at a North American Meat Institute event last year.
The regulatory framework here is still preliminary, and it leaves some important questions unanswered — among them, labelling. Cell-based meat advocates argue that they should be allowed to label their products as meat, Abrell told me. In many states, legislation has been introduced — and in some cases has passed — prohibiting them from doing that.
The USDA’s labelling authority overrides that of the states — states are not allowed to impose labelling requirements incompatible with the standards that the USDA puts forward. That’s so we don’t end up with 50 different standards for the labelling of products, and higher food costs as companies try to comply with different requirements everywhere. So if the USDA says that cell-based meat products can be labelled as “cell-based meat,” “slaughter-free meat,” “clean meat,” or any of the other terms that have been proposed, that should settle the question.
In the real world, of course, it’ll be more complicated than that. Once a law is in place, someone has to have the grounds to sue, and then file a lawsuit, in order to change it. So if the USDA says it’s okay to label cell-based products as meat, there’ll likely be many lengthy fights in court before those labels are legal everywhere.
Abrell told me that the Good Food Institute was hoping the USDA’s leadership would stop such laws from being proposed and approved in the first place — that, now that the federal government is stepping up and characterizing their responsibilities on this issue, the states will stop trying to legislate meat-labelling law themselves.
Can cell-based meat live up to the hype? In the regulatory agreement released Thursday, the cell-based meat industry cleared one major hurdle: US regulators are interested in ensuring that these technologies have a future here.
“We’ve got new technology with stem cell protein growth [referring to cell-cultured meat technology],” Purdue said in an interview last year. “Shouldn’t we in the United States be about how we can grow and feed people more efficiently and more effectively? … These techniques need to be embraced, not kept out.”
So cell-based meat will have its shot at living up to its promise. But will it?
There are still a number of hurdles to be overcome before we have cell-based meat in stores. First, there’s a challenge called “scaffolding” — figuring out how to shape cultured cells into tissue. Right now, cell-based meat techniques can make a decent replacement for, say, ground beef. But to replace a steak, you need to grow the cells into the tissues that they grow into in living animals. Researchers are still figuring out how to do that.
Once you have a product, there’s the question of scaling it. The hope for cell-based meat is that it can eventually meet all of the world’s demand for meat, which is steadily increasing as the world gets wealthier. To do that, it’s not enough to be able to make one steak — you need to be able to make steaks at the same incredible scale that factory farms do.
“There are lots of technical hurdles here to overcome,” Paul Mozdziak, a muscle biologist who studies lab-grown poultry at North Carolina State University, told Nature in February.
Then there’s the question of how much cell-based meat will help with climate change. Cell-based meat cultivation won’t produce methane, like our current agriculture does. But it’ll still be energy-intensive and thus relies on the availability of lots of renewable energy to avoid being carbon-intensive too. One study covered by my colleague Sigal Samuel argues that in the worst-case scenario it could be just as bad for the environment as conventional farming, though the study reached that conclusion with some highly questionable assumptions, like that our energy production methods won’t improve at all in the next 1,000 years.
With a regulatory framework now in place, proponents argue that these promises are likelier than ever to be achieved. Investors can invest more confidently, knowing that the US is working to ensure these products can be safely brought to market. With more money and more research, the remaining technical challenges might prove tractable.
But it’s also quite likely that cell-based meat will be slower to market than proponents hope and — at least initially — will not address all the problems it’s meant to. And it’s worryingly possible that, even if all goes well, consumers won’t be interested. All regulation can do is ensure cell-based meat products are safe, accurately labelled, and legal to bring to market.
For the companies working on those products, that’s enough for some rejoicing for the moment.
Protein’s momentum as a power nutrient in beverages continues in 2019, with new sources and formats making the satiety-inducing, refueling, muscle-building macronutrient more appealing and accessible in the mainstream marketplace. With many consumers heeding nutritional advice to increase their intake of plant-based foods, more and varied plant proteins are being added to all types of refrigerated and shelf-stable beverages.
“More consumers are adopting vegetarian or lactose-free diets, while others are turning to plant-based foods for other perceived health benefits,” said Lu Ann Williams, director of innovation, Innova Market Insights, The Netherlands.
This is fueling beverage innovation with plant proteins, many of which are sources of additional beneficial nutrients, including fiber, vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients. Adding any type of protein to a beverage comes with sensory challenges. With plant proteins, hurdles are often higher than with dairy proteins, as plant proteins tend to have beany, grainy or green flavor profiles, as well as reduced solubility and off color.
“In the move to offer something new, a growing number of non-soy plant-based ingredients are appearing, including cereals such as rice, oats and barley,” Ms. Williams said. “We are also seeing an increase in nuts, such as almonds, hazelnuts, cashews, walnuts and macadamias, as well as coconut and more unusual options such as lupin, hemp and flaxseed.”
In many instances, blends work best. Chicago-based Spinning Wheel Brands has introduced Hope & Sesame organic sesamemilks. The beverage relies on an exclusive plant-based protein concentrate comprised of sesame seeds and pea protein, delivering eight grams of protein per serving.
Califia Farms, Los Angeles, is the most recent company to enter the oat beverage business with Übermilk. One serving contains eight grams of plant-based protein from peas, oats and sunflower seeds, a blend that provides all eight essential amino acids.
It is that balance of essential amino, along with a creamy texture, that has long made whey and milk the preferred source of protein in beverages ranging from smoothies to lattes to meal replacements.
“Dairy proteins are the ‘gold standard’ for formulating protein into beverages,” said Devin Stagg, chief operating officer, PLT Health Solutions, Morristown, N.J. “In most cases, plant proteins can’t match dairy proteins, if for no other reason, it’s because that’s what people are accustomed to.”
Melissa Machen, senior technical services specialist, Cargill, Minneapolis, said, “Plant protein ingredients lack milk fat, which provides much of the texture and mouthfeel associated with dairy-based products. To make up for that loss in mouthfeel, formulators often turn to texturizers to build back the velvety, rich texture consumers expect.
“Milk and whey proteins also are inherently sweeter than plant proteins; natural non-dairy flavors can be added to plant-protein beverages to enhance the taste while also providing creaminess.”
PLT Health Solutions made chickpea-based protein concentrate available in commercial quantities in June 2018. The product was designed to provide the beverage industry with a plant protein that approaches the sensory and formulating experience of dairy proteins.
“The very small, uniform and smooth-surfaced particle size of our chickpea protein is responsible for important formulating benefits, in particular when it comes to the development of beverage products,” Mr. Stagg said. “In beverages, this small particle size enhances dissolution and suspension of the ingredient in liquids and reduces sedimentation that is a common issue for plant proteins, specifically in low-pH beverages where ‘crash out’ can occur. The unique smoothness of the particles also works to enhance texture and mouthfeel in beverage applications.”
The company helped a fortified-juice beverage manufacturer eliminate grittiness by switching plant proteins to chickpea. The swap also allowed for an increase in protein load.
“We have used our chickpea protein in combination with other protein ingredients — notably pea protein — to improve overall taste of a formulation,” Mr. Stagg said. “This has the benefit of reducing the need for sweeteners or masking agents, delivering a healthier product and a cleaner label.”
Not all pea proteins are created equal, Ms. Machen said.
“While most pea proteins bring along a host of flavor challenges, our pea protein is decidedly different,” she said. “It’s sourced from yellow pea seed varieties specially selected to minimize the off-flavors normally attributed to pulses. In addition, it is processed without the use of hexanes to bring out the best flavor possible.”
From a functional standpoint, pea protein tends to be more soluble than other plant proteins, making it easier to keep in suspension. The further a beverage’s pH is from a protein’s isoelectric point, the easier it is to keep the protein in suspension.
“It is especially well-suited for both neutral and low-pH beverage applications,” Ms. Machen said. “Neutral pH beverages, such as alternative milks, dry protein powders and ready-to-drink meal replacements, typically have a pH close to 7.0, far above pea protein’s isoelectric point, which ranges from 4.5 to 5.”
Pea protein possesses emulsifying capabilities, making it well suited for plant-based meal-replacement beverages. The products typically are fortified with numerous vitamins, minerals and nutrients and contain satiating levels of protein and fat. It is paramount the suspension maintain stability to deliver a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.
“It is important to allow for proper dispersion and hydration time,” said Karen Constanza, project leader — technical development, Ingredion Inc., Westchester, Ill. “There are also sensory differences that are inherent to each protein source and must be considered when determining the overall flavor of a beverage.
“For example, our pea protein isolate is characterized by cooked bean and sweet aromatic notes. Our pea protein isolate also has lower raw and green flavors compared to other commercial pea protein isolates, which can be beneficial when it comes to developing a beverage flavor.”
Pea protein contains all of the essential amino acids, but it is not a complete protein because two of the amino acids, methionine and cysteine, are limiting. To compensate, formulators typically blend pea protein with a complementary protein source, such as rice, chickpea, soy or pumpkin.
“One issue that comes up frequently is that most plant proteins are not complete proteins, like dairy,” said Danielle Black, senior product strategic manager of plant-based nutrition, Glanbia Nutritionals, Chicago. “Plant protein blends may offer a solution to achieve a higher protein level, but the resulting blend may have functionality or even continuity-of-supply challenges.
“And each plant-based ingredient poses different challenges. For instance, flaxseed’s organoleptic stability can be a challenge, which is unfortunate because it has such a great nutritional value. It is high in omega-3 fatty acids and also contains fiber and protein.”
Glanbia has developed a process that renders flaxseed protein a two-year shelf life. It may be used at up to 3% inclusion in ready-to-drink applications.
Soy remains the most popular plant protein, alone or in combination with others. This often allows for a greater protein level along with an improved sensory profile.
“Some of our soy offerings for beverages include soy protein isolates and concentrates, and organic whole soybean powder,” said Lisa Bradford, senior scientist, Archer Daniels Midland Co., Chicago.
Soy protein is most comparable to dairy when it comes to protein quality. This means it contains all the essential amino acids in the best proportion for the body’s use.
“Peanuts and tree nuts are another great source of plant-based proteins that can be adapted for beverages by using nut butters and flours,” Ms. Bradford said. “We offer a variety of tree nut butters, including almond, cashew, macadamia, pistachio and sunflower. Nut butters are a great protein because they offer intact fat, which aids in creating a creamy mouthfeel in beverages. We also offer peanut flour, which is an interesting ingredient that offers additional protein, mouthfeel and flavor, and that can provide a foundation for instant powder beverages and other applications.”
Other plant-based beverage protein options ADM offers include chia seeds, quinoa flour and edible bean powders.
“The starch from edible beans plays a key role in mouthfeel and stability, which is critical for beverages,” Ms. Bradford said.
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