A team at the University of Tokyo has successfully created the world’s first entirely plant-based scaffolding for cultivated meat, solving one of the industry’s biggest technical challenges. Published in Nature Food, their research demonstrates how proteins extracted from mushrooms and legumes can perfectly mimic the extracellular matrix that gives meat its texture.
Traditional lab-grown meat relies on animal-derived collagen or synthetic polymers as scaffolding, which either compromises the “clean meat” premise or creates texture issues. The new method uses a combination of pea protein and mycelium (fungal roots) to create a porous, fibrous structure that muscle cells can adhere to and grow on.
Professor Kenji Sato, lead researcher, explains: “Our scaffolding not only matches the mouthfeel of conventional meat but actually enhances it by allowing better fat marbling distribution.” Early taste tests with cultivated wagyu beef showed 92% of participants couldn’t distinguish it from traditional cuts.
The implications are massive for sustainability. Current estimates suggest this technology could reduce the carbon footprint of lab-grown meat by another 40% by eliminating the need for bioreactors to produce animal-based scaffolds. Several major cultivated meat companies, including Upside Foods and Aleph Farms, have already licensed the technology, with products expected to hit select markets by late 2025.
However, regulatory hurdles remain. The EU’s novel food regulations currently don’t have a category for this hybrid plant-cell-based protein structure. Meanwhile, the breakthrough has reignited debates about what can legally be labeled as “meat,” with cattle industry groups in the U.S. pushing for new labeling restrictions.
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