Roslin Technologies has made a breakthrough in scaling up the production of cultivated pork. Roslin’s CEO has also announced a personal ambition to develop cultivated haggis by Burns Night next year.
In collaboration with the University of Edinburgh and the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre, Roslin has found a new method that removes variations between batches when generating cells. The method, which could be used on an industrial scale, should reduce the cost of cell culture media by 61%, according to Insider.
Pluripotent stem cells
Roslin produces pluripotent stem cells, which can be used to grow various different types of animal tissue. The company is currently the only commercial provider of these cells, supplying them to cultivated meat producers worldwide.
Cultivated pork is not Roslin’s only focus; this spring the company announced it was launching a cultivated pet food venture called Good Dog Food in collaboration with Agronomics.
Scaling up to industry standards
A spinoff from the University of Edinburgh, Roslin Technologies is known for being affiliated with the Roslin Institute, which famously revealed Dolly the sheep, the world’s first cloned animal, back in 1996. The company is now said to be one of the UK’s leading agribusiness growth prospects.
In June 2021, Roslin hired new CEO Ernst van Orsouw as it prepared for commercialisation of its animal stem cell platform. Towards the end of the year, Roslin received a £1 million grant from the UK government to accelerate this process.
“The proof of concept has shown that costs can be reduced, batch-to-batch variation reduced, and now in partnership with cultivated meat producers we can take the findings forward to larger bioreactors and begin the process of scaling up to industry standards,” said Dr. Karen Fairlie-Clarke, innovation and engagement manager at Roslin Technologies. “While there is still further to go to meet parity with the economics of livestock products, we are taking steps to get there by addressing the production challenges facing the cultivated meat sector.”
