Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Finnish researchers aim to bring lab-grown coffee to the markets in around four years' time

Are we already in the middle of the next agriculture and husbandry revolution? From nature to lab! 

"... It’s actually grown from a cluster of coffee cells in a bioreactor, under the ideal temperature, light, and oxygen conditions to allow them to thrive. As an approach, it’s not that different from the way lab-grown meat is being produced. ..."

"... The work was started by initiating coffee cell cultures, establishing respective cell lines in the laboratory and transferring them to bioreactors to begin producing biomass. After analyses of the biomass, a roasting process was developed, and the new coffee was finally evaluated by VTT’s trained sensory panel. ...
Currently all coffee material produced in laboratory conditions represents experimental food and would require regulatory approval by the FDA to be marketed and sold to consumers in the United States. In Europe, the lab-grown coffee should first be approved as Novel Food before being marketed. ..."

The whole idea is not exactly brand new (no pun intended):
Production of Coffee from Plant Cell Suspension Cultures (appeared 1974 in the Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology Journal)

Finnish researchers aim to bring lab-grown coffee to the markets in around four years' time

Sustainable coffee grown in Finland – the land that drinks the most coffee per capita produces its first tasty cup with cellular agriculture VTT has successfully produced coffee cells in a bioreactor through cellular agriculture. The innovation can help to make the production of coffee more sustainable. The first batches produced by VTT in a laboratory in Finland smell and taste like conventional coffee.

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