An overview of recent progress in cultured meat: focusing on technology, quality properties, safety, industrialization and public acceptance

Cultured meat technology represents an innovative food production approach that enables the large-scale cultivation of animal cells to obtain muscle, fat, and other tissues, which are then processed into meat products. Compared to traditional meat production methods, cell-cultured meat may significantly reduce energy consumption by 7% to 45%, greenhouse gas emissions by 78% to 96%, land use by 99%, and water use by 82% to 96%. This technology offers several advantages, including a shorter production cycle and enhanced environmental sustainability, resource efficiency, and overall sustainability. However, numerous technical challenges remain, such as the development of serum-free media, maintenance of seed cell functionality, large-scale cell culture techniques, three-dimensional (3D) culture methods, and innovations in scaffold materials. These hurdles must be addressed to achieve low-cost, high-efficiency industrial production in the cultivated meat sector. Furthermore, as a supplement or substitute for traditional meat, cultured meat products must possess similar sensory characteristics and nutritional value, ensure high food safety standards, and maintain low production costs to enhance market competitiveness. Therefore, achieving the industrialization of cultured meat necessitates careful consideration of several additional challenges related to sensory attributes, nutritional quality, food safety, and consumer acceptance. This review systematically examines these aspects to provide a theoretical and practical foundation for the sustainable biomanufacturing of cultured meat.