Discussions have been growing in recent years on cellular agriculture’s potential role in improving food security as well as addressing consumer concerns, such as animal welfare and sustainability. In the last two years, Meros has been digging deeply into topics including novel and alternative protein sources. We continue to monitor developments in this industry and our researcher Sachika Onaka has used this to create a snapshot series of Japan’s cultivated meat industry in 2024. To start, in this first installment, we’ll explore Japan’s major domestic players!
So, what is cultivated meat?
Cultivated meat, including seafood, is ‘real’ meat created by cultivating animal cells in a bioreactor (in vitro). Cell culture mediums, growth factors and other proteins are added to provide the necessary nutrients for the development of the cells. Cultivated meat is also referred to as cell-cultured meat, and various products, from chicken, beef, and pork to foie gras, eel, and tuna, are being developed by startups, universities, and major food manufacturers around the world.
The cultivated meat industry in Japan
Japan’s cultivated meat and seafood market has attracted significant interest from international governments as well as startups, including France’s Gourmey, Singapore’s Umami Bioworks and Isreal’s Forsea Foods, all of which are interested in expanding into Japan. While globally there was a decrease in investment into the cultivated meat industry in 2024, Japan does not yet seem to be slowing down.
Domestically, research and development are prolific, but unlike in overseas markets where there has been more focus on growing ground meat products such as burgers and meatballs, in Japan, R&D is slightly skewed towards creating structured cultivated meat (i.e. steaks). This is likely due to the fact that early corporate movers, both in terms of joint R&D initiatives and investment into cultivated meat, are companies from the traditional meat industry, such as Nippon Ham and Itoham Yonekyu, both major meat processing and food manufacturing companies. Furthermore, many cultivated meat researchers have established roots in regenerative medicine and induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) research, so Japan’s initial focus on cultivated meat instead of seafood was a logical conclusion.
This is not to say that there is no R&D being conducted on cultivated seafood; in fact, there is significant research and media attention on seafood is increasing. We will cover cultivated seafood in a later post in this series.
The Japanese cultivated meat players and their characteristics
Cultivated meat startups, companies, universities and industry associations have all been key in the development of the Japanese cultivated meat industry.
The heavyweight that has propelled the Japanese cultivated meat market forward is IntegriCulture, a cellular agriculture biotech startup. IntegriCulture focuses on not only producing products that use cultured cells but also working towards forming a cellular agriculture network and value chain.
Other startups and subsidiary companies focusing on cultivated meat include NU Protein, Diverse Farm, Organoid Farm and Hyperion FoodTech. These companies are notable in that they are diverse in their operations and are not solely pursuing the creation of a final cultivated meat product. Some produce inputs such as culture mediums and serums, while others produce cultured cells for cosmetic products.
Universities are key in the technological advances of the industry, and two notable examples of cultivated meat research are the Takeuchi lab at the University of Tokyo and the Graduate School of Engineering at Osaka University. These two research labs focus on structured cultivated meat and have partnered with corporations to form public-private partnerships. The University of Tokyo and Nissin Corporation, a major Japanese food manufacturing company, most famous for their instant noodles, are working towards their goal of developing a 100 gm cultivated steak.
Osaka University is working with several major corporations and has formed the Future Creation Consortium for Cultivated Meat with them to develop 3D-printing technology to create cultivated wagyu steak.
One trend we see in Japan, besides the pioneering efforts from meat processing and food manufacturing corporations, is that large, established companies with no background in the food market have also ventured into cultivated meat R&D. These corporations are not only investing in startups and conducting in-house research and development, but also forming partnerships with each other. An example is the partnership between ZACROS (a film manufacturer), Toppan (a printing company) and Shimadzu (a high-tech manufacturing company), which aims to develop, commercialize and facilitate consumer acceptance of cultivated wagyu steak.
The three-way partnership was awarded approximately 1 billion yen in funding as part of the Japanese government’s Bio Manufacturing Revolution Promotion Project Research and Development Plan. This partnership will also collaborate with key universities conducting cultivated meat research, including Osaka University, the University of Tokyo, Tokyo Women’s Medical University, and Tokyo University of Agriculture, as well as the Japan Association for Cellular Agriculture (JACA)
JACA is an industry association focused on policy making and advocacy for cellular agriculture technology. JACA communicates with Japanese government ministries and provides information on regulatory developments in both Japanese and English. Other industry organizations such as the Cellular Agriculture Institute of the Commons (CAIC) and the Japan Bioindustry Association (JBA) focus on facilitating collaboration and information sharing among the industry, along with consumer education and awareness building of cultivated meat.
As we can see, collaboration among and between a wide array of stakeholders is gaining traction in Japan. Stay tuned for the next installment in this series, where we’ll focus on cultivated seafood and its potential in Japan! For further insights on cultivated meat, food tech and biotech for food and agriculture, please reach out to inquiries@merosconsulting.com
