🌟 Waste Valorisation and "everything but the oink" 🌟

Since it first hit the market in December 2020, cultured meat has been at the center of economic debates. Many critics argue it will never reach commodity pricing and will be confined to the realm of novelty foods or upscale dining experiences. 💭🥩

I’ve discussed before how advances in biomanufacturing could tackle these challenges and drive down biomass production costs. One key hurdle is that most current bioprocessing relies on stirred-tank bioreactors—technology originally designed and optimized for low-yield, high-value pharmaceutical production. 💊🔬 This setup is fundamentally unsuited to scaling biomanufacturing for commodity products, which demand high yields at low cost. 📉📈

Beyond biotech innovations and hybrid product development, there’s another compelling path to profitability for cultured meat: waste stream valorization. ♻️ In traditional animal agriculture, every part of the animal finds a use—hence the saying, “everything but the oink.” (And trust me, after reading countless renditions of ‘Old MacDonald’ to my kids, I know even that oink has a purpose!) 🐷🎶

For cultured meat, while the biomass becomes the primary food product, the spent media holds untapped potential. It’s rich in:

1️⃣ Secreted proteins (with CHO cell cultures alone secreting over 500 proteins, including collagen) 💪
2️⃣ Secondary metabolites (a varied array including lactate and ammonia) 🧪
3️⃣ Extracellular vesicles (exosomes loaded with proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids) 🧫
4️⃣ Unused starting ingredients (like amino acids, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals) 🥄🍃

Each of these components could drive significant additional revenue—if we can overcome the technical challenges of isolation and purification. 🚀

Waste stream valorization has already enhanced industries from brewing (think: Marmite from yeast) 🍺🧂 to olive oil and winemaking (polyphenols) 🍷🌿, and even cheese production (whey protein) 🧀. For biomanufacturing, finding value in ‘waste’ could be a game changer. ✨

What other innovative products could come from large-scale bioprocessing waste that I've missed? Who is leading in this space? 🤔💡

hashtag#biomanunfacturing hashtag#circulareconomy hashtag#cultivatedmeat

(This image is so bad I just had to share it 🙃 . I don't know what a "bicorector" is, but it seems to lead to a brand new galaxy)