Cultured meat: state of the art and future

Cultured meat or in vitro meat offers a safe and disease-free way forward to meet increasing meat requirement without involving animal sacrifices and at the same time, reducing greenhouse emissions, as compared to conventional meat. However, its cost, scale-up, public neophobia and technophobia, and incomplete understanding of health benefits, limits its commercial viability. This review looks into technological advances and limitations in this area and at the same time, critically analyses the social concerns, making a case for in vitro meat. This paper also looks into the new startups which have ventured into the area but are facing issues due to social perception and lack of regulatory guidelines.