How Precision Fermentation Can Revolutionize the Protein Landscape

Bridging the Gap Between Pharmaceutical Innovation and Sustainable Food Production

The global food industry is undergoing a seismic shift as it grapples with the need for sustainable, ethical, and efficient protein production. Technologies like precision fermentation and cultivated meat offer transformative solutions, promising to reduce environmental impacts and address the inefficiencies of traditional animal agriculture. While these approaches borrow heavily from well-established pharmaceutical practices, applying them to food production introduces unique challenges laboratories must overcome to unlock their full potential.

The Transition from Pharma to Food

Precision fermentation and cell culture are deeply rooted in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors, where companies have used them for decades to produce medicines, vaccines, and complex proteins. These processes rely on precise control of variables such as pH, temperature, oxygen, and nutrient levels, enabling high levels of consistency and efficacy. However, scaling these processes for food applications is an entirely different challenge.

In pharmaceuticals, the focus is on producing small quantities of highly valuable compounds, often with substantial budgets. By contrast, the food industry demands producing high volumes at a fraction of the cost while maintaining safety, taste, and nutritional quality. Bridging this gap requires innovation in process design, cost reduction, and monitoring technologies.

large steel tank in food/biotech manufacturing plant

"At METTLER TOLEDO, we’re committed to empowering sustainable innovation by enabling precise measurement solutions that drive the future of cultivated meat and precision fermentation."
Adriano Guiso, Sales Trainer

Plant workers inspecting fermentation tanks

Leveraging Precision Fermentation for Better Food

Precision fermentation uses microorganisms as “cell factories” to produce specific proteins, enzymes, and other molecules that enhance food products. These include flavor enhancers, vitamins, and plant-based dairy proteins, as well as compounds that mimic the umami-rich taste of meat.

Despite its promise, scaling precision fermentation to meet food industry needs presents significant challenges. Maintaining consistency across large-scale fermenters requires robust monitoring systems to control pH, temperature, and nutrient delivery. Even slight deviations can compromise the taste, texture, or nutritional content of the final product.

Drawing on expertise from pharma, laboratories are now adapting real-time analytics and process optimization tools for food applications, enabling manufacturers to ensure consistent quality while minimizing costs and waste. These technologies are essential as precision fermentation products move from niche applications to large-scale commercial production.

Female scientist inspecting a lab bioreactor

Overcoming Challenges in Cultivated Meat Production

Cultivated meat, which involves growing animal cells in bioreactors, represents another promising frontier. Like precision fermentation, it draws heavily on pharmaceutical techniques for cell culture and tissue engineering. However, while pharma often focuses on high-value, low-volume production, cultivated meat must achieve the opposite: producing large quantities of affordable meat while replicating its complex texture and taste.

One of the biggest hurdles is the cost of culture media, the nutrient-rich solution required for cell growth. Because it’s traditionally reliant on expensive components like fetal bovine serum (FBS), the food industry is racing to develop animal-free, cost-effective alternatives. These new formulations must support cell proliferation and differentiation while being scalable and affordable.

Equally challenging is the need to mimic the texture of muscle tissue. This requires scaffolds—support structures guiding cell growth and organization. Scaffolds must balance biocompatibility, affordability, and functionality, creating meat that feels and tastes like its conventional counterpart. Researchers are applying lessons from regenerative medicine here, but achieving the necessary scale and cost-efficiency for food production remains a work in progress.

Despite these challenges, precision fermentation and cultivated meat are advancing rapidly, largely due to innovations inspired by the pharmaceutical sector. Real-time monitoring, automated data collection, and process optimization are proving essential for success. These tools allow producers to maintain consistency, reduce costs, and scale their operations while ensuring regulatory compliance and consumer safety.

For example, leveraging inline monitoring tools developed for pharma enables food producers to control critical parameters like pH, dissolved oxygen, and nutrient levels in real-time. Real-time online pH monitoring is crucial to maintaining stability and ensuring optimal fermentation conditions.

However, laboratories cannot yet measure all critical parameters online with complete accuracy. For those that can, it remains essential to verify the reliability of online sensors. This is where laboratory instruments play a crucial role, acting as the backbone for quality control and process validation.

For instance, offline pH measurement is vital when verifying and correcting the offset of online pH sensors. Over time, online sensors may drift, leading to inaccuracies that, if uncorrected, could compromise cell growth and overall product quality. Regular offline checks help ensure the precision of online readings, maintaining optimal fermentation and cultivation conditions.
Similarly, UV-Vis spectroscopy provides insights into media composition and cell density, offering a more detailed analysis of microbial or cellular growth than online sensors alone can capture. This allows manufacturers to detect inconsistencies and adjust feeding strategies accordingly.

Female scientist performing analytical experiments in a lab

Additionally, precision balances and weighing systems are indispensable for accurate ingredient dosing in media preparation and feeding. Even minor deviations in nutrient composition can significantly impact microbial performance or cell proliferation. Weighing ensures manufacturers consistently add the right amount of each component, supporting stable and reproducible production processes.

Furthermore, cell counting technologies serve as a critical verification tool for monitoring cell proliferation and viability. While some bioreactors have online cell monitoring capabilities, offline cell counting remains necessary to cross-check results and optimize growth conditions. This dual-layered approach minimizes errors and enhances the reliability of data used in production scaling.

By integrating these laboratory instruments alongside online monitoring systems, manufacturers can bridge the gap between research and full-scale production, ensuring alternative protein products meet the highest standards of quality, consistency, and safety. As technology advances, laboratory verification will continue to play a crucial role in refining and optimizing large-scale food innovation.

Female scientist standing in a lab and smiling

The Road Ahead: Innovation Meets Accessibility

As precision fermentation and cultivated meat become more affordable and scalable, they have the potential to redefine global food systems. Beyond replicating traditional meat, these technologies open the door to entirely new food categories, such as nutrient-optimized proteins or products designed for specific dietary needs.

While the journey from pharmaceuticals to food is complex, it also highlights the synergies between the two fields. The expertise and technologies honed in pharma provide a solid foundation for overcoming the challenges of scaling and affordability in food applications. As researchers adapt these tools to the unique demands of the food industry, precision fermentation and cultivated meat are poised to revolutionize how we produce and consume protein—sustainably, ethically, and efficiently.

Search suggestions

How Precision Fermentation Can Revolutionize the Protein Landscape

Bridging the Gap Between Pharmaceutical Innovation and Sustainable Food Production

Bridging the Gap Between Pharmaceutical Innovation and Sustainable Food Production

The Transition from Pharma to Food

Leveraging Precision Fermentation for Better Food

Overcoming Challenges in Cultivated Meat Production

Scaling Food Innovation with Established Expertise

The Road Ahead: Innovation Meets Accessibility

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Cultivated Meat, Seafood, Dairy, and Eggs

Guide: The Future of Food Formulation in the Laboratory

Guide on Laboratory Automation

Guide on Food Regulations in the Laboratory

Search suggestions

How Precision Fermentation Can Revolutionize the Protein Landscape

Bridging the Gap Between Pharmaceutical Innovation and Sustainable Food Production

Bridging the Gap Between Pharmaceutical Innovation and Sustainable Food Production

The Transition from Pharma to Food

Leveraging Precision Fermentation for Better Food

Overcoming Challenges in Cultivated Meat Production

Scaling Food Innovation with Established Expertise

The Road Ahead: Innovation Meets Accessibility

Related Documents

Cultivated Meat, Seafood, Dairy, and Eggs

Guide: The Future of Food Formulation in the Laboratory

Guide on Laboratory Automation

Guide on Food Regulations in the Laboratory

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