Upscaling Cultured Meat Production

Cultured meat has the potential of becoming a more sustainable alternative to current meat production.Production costs need to decrease for further developing the product and to eventually become a competitivealternative. The goal of this thesis is to design a system in which 10 kg of muscles can be created on a yearlybasis, while reducing labour and total costs.Myosatellite cells from the targeted animal are first proliferated under stimulating conditions. Once enough cells are generated it is ready for the step that this project focusses on: fusing of the cells and differentiatinginto true muscle fibers. For this step the cells are mixed with a hydrogel containing the extracellular matrix. Due to cell induced compaction and the presence of obstructions, stress builds up within the tissuewhich is important in the maturation of the muscles.Concept generation and comparison leads to the optimal shape of the muscle and the most promising production method. The chosen concept scores in robustness, volume reduction and labour reduction.Three prototypes are made and experimented with. The results show partly successful formation of ringshaped muscles, but also cases where the tissue breaks or do not develop well enough. Optimising for tissuesurvival and muscle development leads to an optimised design.Compared to the previous technique, the new design improves in volume (86% reduction), in number of parts (99% reduction), and provides better opportunities for mechanization and full automation.Mosamea