Upcycled Livestock Serum Could Slash Costs of Producing Cultivated Meat

Scientists at Chung-Ang University in South Korea have developed a way to replace fetal bovine serum (FBS) in cultured meat production using slaughterhouse blood by-products. By harvesting and processing serum from adult livestock blood that would otherwise be discarded as waste, the researchers created an ethically aligned and scalable alternative to traditional FBS. This strategy addresses a major cost driver and ethical concern in cellular agriculture, offering a practical step toward making cultivated meat more viable for commercial production.

Bovine, porcine, and chicken sera were evaluated in bovine satellite cell cultures to optimize cell performance. The raw livestock sera were purified, heat-inactivated for biosafety, and supplemented with low-cost additives such as lipid-rich albumin or an insulin-transferrin-selenium mixture at precise minimal doses. While poor performance was observed with chicken serum due to species incompatibility, robust cell growth, myogenic differentiation, and long-term expansion through serial passaging were successfully supported by optimized bovine and porcine sera at levels comparable to FBS.

Replacing commercial FBS with these optimized livestock serum formulations reduced total culture medium costs by 62.6%. By integrating these cost-effective serum alternatives into cultivated meat production pipelines, scientists could help lower the barrier for growing meat biomass to blend with plant-based ingredients, offering a practical approach to hybrid meat products while making productive use of agricultural waste.

Read the full study via Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology to learn more.