Seren Kell, researcher in alternative proteins, discusses the wastefulness of animal agriculture and the potential of alternative proteins. They explore the challenges of replicating animal proteins in plant-based alternatives and the benefits of fermentation. They also discuss computational approaches, microbial strain selection, and using waste products for alternative protein production. The podcast covers the obstacles to mass adoption of alternative proteins, advancements in cultivated meat, and building a research ecosystem in the field.
Read more
AI Summary
Highlights
AI Chapters
Episode notes
auto_awesome
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
Fermentation offers efficient and sustainable methods for producing alternative proteins, revolutionizing the industry.
Fermentation provides significant environmental benefits, reducing land use, greenhouse gas emissions, and water usage.
Challenges in target and strain selection can be overcome with computational biology and high-throughput screening, unlocking the full potential of fermentation.
Fermentation is a versatile tool for advancing alternative protein innovation, enabling the production of specific ingredients and improving taste and texture.
Deep dives
Fermentation: A Promising Technology for Alternative Proteins
Fermentation is a powerful method for creating delicious alternative proteins. It has been used for thousands of years in traditional fermentation processes such as brewing beer and making yogurt. With the advancements in precision fermentation, biomass fermentation, and traditional fermentation, new possibilities are emerging for producing sustainable and tasty alternative proteins. Fermentation offers numerous benefits, including efficient resource usage, the ability to upcycle waste streams, and the potential for new product development. The process involves leveraging microorganisms to transform inputs into specific outputs, such as proteins, fats, and functional ingredients. Target selection and strain selection are key challenges in the fermentation process, but computational biology and high-throughput screening have enabled rapid exploration and identification of suitable targets and microbial strains. Ongoing research in fermentation is driving innovation in the alternative protein industry, with exciting developments in creating hybrid products, improving taste and functionality, and addressing environmental challenges. Overall, fermentation holds great promise for revolutionizing the production of alternative proteins, providing sustainable and delicious options for consumers.
Fermentation's Environmental Impact and Opportunities
Fermentation offers significant environmental benefits compared to traditional animal agriculture. Life cycle assessments have shown substantial reductions in land use, greenhouse gas emissions, and water usage through fermentation processes. Specific examples include corn fermentation protein, which has a 70% lower carbon footprint than chicken, and precision fermentation-produced whey protein, which emits 97% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than traditional cow-derived whey. Fermentation also presents opportunities for sustainability through the use of waste side streams from other industries. Spent grain from beer production and corn husks are just a couple of examples of waste products being upcycled and used as feedstocks for microorganisms in fermentation. This circular economy approach not only reduces waste but also enhances resource efficiency. The potential of fermentation to revolutionize alternative protein production and environmental sustainability is vast, with ongoing research exploring new applications and optimizing processes.
The Challenges and Future of Fermentation
Fermentation faces challenges in target selection and strain selection. Target selection involves choosing the specific ingredients or functional molecules to produce through fermentation. Computational biology and high-throughput screening are crucial tools in this process, allowing for the exploration of a vast number of compounds and ingredients. Strain selection involves deciding which microbial strains to use as production hosts. While there are established workhorse strains, exploration of novel strains in the microbial world holds immense potential for discovering more efficient and functional hosts. Advances in computational biology and screening technologies can accelerate the discovery and characterization of microbial strains. Moreover, future research should focus on utilizing the vast biodiversity of microorganisms and improving target selection capabilities to unlock the full potential of fermentation for alternative protein production. With its efficiency, sustainability, and untapped possibilities, fermentation is set to play a pivotal role in the future of alternative proteins.
Fermentation: A Powerful Tool for Alternative Protein Innovation
Fermentation offers a powerful and versatile tool for advancing alternative protein innovation. Through precision fermentation, biomass fermentation, and traditional fermentation, scientists and companies are making great strides in creating delicious and sustainable alternative proteins. Precision fermentation allows for the production of specific ingredients, such as heme for plant-based burgers or real animal proteins like whey and casein without relying on animal agriculture. Biomass fermentation enables the consumption of microorganisms to produce high-quality protein at scale. Traditional fermentation techniques enhance taste, texture, and nutritional value of plant-based ingredients, making them more appealing to consumers. The challenges of target selection and strain selection are being addressed through computational biology and high-throughput screening, unlocking the vast potential of microbial strains and ingredients. With ongoing research and innovation, fermentation is poised to revolutionize the alternative protein industry by providing sustainable, tasty, and accessible options for a better food future.
The Potential of Fermentation for Alternative Proteins
Fermentation offers an opportunity to use various feedstocks, potentially waste products, to produce alternative proteins. This interdisciplinary field requires identifying suitable strains and determining the economic viability, supply chains, and conditions necessary for fermentation. Collaborative research projects and mapping exercises are being conducted to explore waste products and their potential for alternative protein production. Infrastructure, such as appropriate bioreactors, is also a key consideration for scaling up fermentation. Public investment can play a crucial role in supporting research, building pilot plants, and addressing these challenges.
The Growth and Challenges of Cultivated Meat
Cultivated meat, also known as lab-grown meat, has seen significant progress over the past decade. Regulatory approval has been a major milestone, with cultivated meat gaining approval in the US and Singapore. The industry has witnessed a growing number of companies, increased specialization, and a shift towards more open access research and government funding. Scaling up production and bringing down costs remain major challenges. However, there is optimism that with public investment and ongoing research, cultivated meat production costs can be reduced, making it a viable and accessible alternative to conventional meat.
Building a Strong Research Ecosystem
GFI Europe focuses on building a robust and collaborative research ecosystem to address the technical challenges in alternative proteins. This involves attracting and supporting scientists from diverse disciplines, securing research funding, and facilitating collaboration. Initiatives like grant programs, partnering with scientific platforms and journals, and creating online communities are helping to drive the growth of the research community. By fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and open access research, GFI Europe aims to accelerate scientific advancements in alternative proteins.
Opportunities for Careers in Alternative Proteins
Alternative proteins offer a range of career opportunities across different disciplines. Scientists from agricultural sciences, animal sciences, chemistry, computational biology, and fermentation science can contribute to solving technical challenges. Roles in policy, science communication, teaching, and entrepreneurship are also crucial. GFI Europe provides resources, job boards, and funding databases to support individuals interested in joining the field. Philanthropic support is also vital for organizations like GFI Europe to continue their work in advancing alternative proteins.
"There have been literally thousands of years of breeding and living with animals to optimise these kinds of problems. But because we're just so early on with alternative proteins and there's so much white space, it's actually just really exciting to know that we can keep on innovating and being far more efficient than this existing technology — which, fundamentally, is just quite inefficient. You're feeding animals a bunch of food to then extract a small fraction of their biomass to then eat that.
Animal agriculture takes up 83% of farmland, but produces just 18% of food calories. So the current system just is so wasteful. And the limiting factor is that you're just growing a bunch of food to then feed a third of the world's crops directly to animals, where the vast majority of those calories going in are lost to animals existing." — Seren Kell
In today’s episode, host Luisa Rodriguez interviews Seren Kell — Senior Science and Technology Manager at the Good Food Institute Europe — about making alternative proteins as tasty, cheap, and convenient as traditional meat, dairy, and egg products.
They cover:
The basic case for alternative proteins, and why they’re so hard to make
Why fermentation is a surprisingly promising technology for creating delicious alternative proteins
The main scientific challenges that need to be solved to make fermentation even more useful
The progress that’s been made on the cultivated meat front, and what it will take to make cultivated meat affordable
How GFI Europe is helping with some of these challenges
How people can use their careers to contribute to replacing factory farming with alternative proteins
The best part of Seren’s job
Plenty more
Chapters:
Cold open (00:00:00)
Luisa’s intro (00:01:08)
The interview begins (00:02:22)
Why alternative proteins? (00:02:36)
What makes alternative proteins so hard to make? (00:11:30)
Why fermentation is so exciting (00:24:23)
The technical challenges involved in scaling fermentation (00:44:38)
Progress in cultivated meat (01:06:04)
GFI Europe’s work (01:32:47)
Careers (01:45:10)
The best part of Seren’s job (01:50:07)
Producer and editor: Keiran Harris Audio Engineering Lead: Ben Cordell Technical editing: Dominic Armstrong and Milo McGuire Additional content editing: Luisa Rodriguez and Katy Moore Transcriptions: Katy Moore
Get the Snipd podcast app
Unlock the knowledge in podcasts with the podcast player of the future.
AI-powered podcast player
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Discover highlights
Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode
Save any moment
Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways
Share & Export
Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more
AI-powered podcast player
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Discover highlights
Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode
