Humbird or Humbug: Cultivated Meat’s Progress Defies Sceptics

For years, Cultivated Meat has promised a slaughter-free, climate-friendly future, but the big question hanging over it was always cost. Could it ever be more than a sci-fi side project?

Photo by David Gavi on Unsplash

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Over a decade ago, the first cultivated beef burger came with an eye-watering price tag of over €250,000. It was groundbreaking, and sceptics immediately questioned, among other things, whether this technology could ever become more than a novelty. Those doubts only grew louder over the next decade, reaching a peak in 2021 when a detailed techno-economic analysis (TEA) suggested that producing real meat from cells at scale might simply be too expensive to be viable. For environmentalists and food-tech enthusiasts holding out hope that cultivated meat could reduce agriculture’s gargantuan carbon and land footprint whilst producing slaughter-free meat, this was a bombshell. But fast forward to 2025, and early pioneers and newer entrants are rapidly driving down costs through cunning strategies, and in ways that even the most optimistic supporters thought impossible. This swift progress has defied expectations proving that cultivated meat represents a viable climate solution, in much the same way solar panels and electric vehicles went from costly curiosities to affordable mainstream options.

The Humbird Analysis -

The TEA in question was produced by David Humbird, an engineering process consultant contracted by Open Philanthropy. His comprehensive ~100-page TEA analysed the economic viability of cultivated meat and his conclusions landed hard: it would be virtually impossible, he argued, for cell culture media costs to fall below $2.50 per litre. This set a hard lower limit of around $16 per kilogram for cultivated meat production – far too expensive to compete with conventional meat which can be as low as $5.91/kg for cow.

The report was picked up quickly and amplified by a piece in The Counter and echoed by major outlets such Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal, flagging high energy usage, while others questioned life-cycle climate benefits, regulatory hurdles, and public acceptance.

The Good Food Institute (GFI), the closest thing Cellular Agriculture has to a benevolent oracle in a lab coat, published a response that challenged Humbird’s assumptions and pointed to already-emerging innovations. They argued it was too soon to write off cultivated meat, and urged a broader view of possible technological paths which would encompass multiple innovative pathways. Other critiques came from New Harvest, which questioned specific assumptions about scalability and media costs suggesting that real-world progress was already diverging from Humbird's projections. While not necessarily formal rebuttals, these perspectives contributed to a growing recognition that the pessimism of the report was far from universally accepted, especially by those in the industry.

Breaking the So-Called Cost Floor -

In March 2025, Lever VC, a leading FoodTech and AgTech specialist venture capital firm, released a white paper titled “A Second Generation of cultivated meat Companies Breaks Through Projected Cost Barriers.” . Its argument is straightforward: within just four years, leading cultivated meat companies have already shattered the TEA’s most central assumptions.

• Media Costs: Humbird forecast that culture media would remain stuck above $2.50–$6.50/L even at scale. Yet today, according to Lever VC, multiple companies have already reached media costs below $1/L, and in some cases below even $0.50/L.

• Cell Density: The TEA pegged maximum cell density at 60g/L. Several firms are now reporting achieving 60–90g/L, boosting yields per batch significantly.

• Production Costs: For some, total production cost may have dropped to $10–15/kg, and in some cases lower – nearly 50% less than what the TEA claimed was possible.

• Capital expenditure (CapEx) Innovation: Instead of relying on expensive pharmaceutical-grade equipment, companies are developing food-grade bioreactors and tailored processes thus cutting CapEx by an order of magnitude.

• Operational Expenses (OPEX): Companies have significantly reduced ongoing operational costs through hybrid product formulations, in-house media production, protein engineering, and streamlined bioreactor operation, collectively driving overall efficiency gains.

Not only have these remarkable breakthroughs defied all expectations but they have come with relatively modest resources, limited government support, and as of yet, no significant economies of scale.

Energy use of cultivated meat -

While Lever VC makes a strong case on the economic front, it doesn’t address energy use or the broader environmental impact. That’s an important omission. Some critical analyses, including peer-reviewed Life Cycle Analyses (LCAs), have flagged high energy demand as a potential Achilles’ heel for Cellular Agriculture, especially if powered by fossil-heavy grids.

However, this concern, while very real today, may not be tomorrow's problem. We are rapidly approaching a zero marginal cost future for electricity, thanks to the exponential rise of solar and battery storage. As renewable energy becomes ubiquitous and cheap, the energy intensity of cultivated meat (and other industries, such as AI) becomes much less of a barrier, especially for nations already decarbonising their grids. In this context, the long-term environmental viability of cultivated meat also looks far stronger than some early analyses assume.

Disruption is Rarely Linear -

This isn't a story about just one technology. It’s a pattern. Technological disruptions are frequently underestimated by experts using linear models. One need look no further than the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), which year after year forecast solar energy growth would flatten, only to be proven spectacularly wrong by reality.

RethinkX, a think tank specializing in disruptive change, has chronicled these forecasting failures. In Brighter, Adam Dorr shines a light on the systemic denialism of incumbent industries rendering them unable to anticipate exponential cost declines and ultimately their own disruption. The pattern is clear: whilst costs fall and adoption increases, predictions continue to lag behind reality.

Why does this happen? As futurist Ray Kurzweil argues in The Singularity Is Nearer, technologies improve exponentially, not linearly – and they compound each other’s progress. Advances in synthetic biology, protein engineering, AI, renewable energy and bioreactor design don’t happen in isolation; they feed off one another. This law of accelerating returns helps explain why fields like cultivated meat can advance faster than even experts and detailed TEAs predict.

The Path Forward -

Cultivated meat is not guaranteed to succeed, nor is it immune to real barriers - from large-scale infrastructure costs to public acceptance, including complex regulatory pathways that vary widely by country. Questions about climate impact and scalability remain alive and important. But it would appear that Humbird was operating under assumptions that have since proven overly conservative and that prematurely wrote cultivated meat’s obituary. The speed at which companies are tearing through assumed limits should spur a reappraisal of this technology, and a renewed optimism about its potential.

What we’re seeing now is a sector undergoing rapid and compounding innovation, driven by incredibly talented people, startup grit, private investment and a sharp focus on technical efficiency. This progress has come with almost no substantial government backing, no generous subsidies, and minimal institutional support. Imagine what could be achieved if real public funding, smart policy incentives, and strong media support aligned behind Cellular Agriculture. The cost floor is cracking. The only real question now is whether the world will back it before it breaks through for good.