Danish food production amounts for approximately 21% of the total Danish greenhouse gas emission (GHG), and especially animal-based food production draws heavily on land and water resources. Thus, any strategy to decrease these numbers are highly relevant to pursue to fulfill the Danish climate targets in 2030 (39 % reduction in GHG) and further in 2050 (carbon neutrality). In vitro (IV) culture of animal-based cells to deliver meat and milk-like products could be one sustainable solution to support these climate targets, while still delivering highly nutritional and appreciated products. In 2013, the first non-commercial burger was produced from cultured bovine muscle cells, but still no commercial products are available, because there are several challenges to overcome.

The project CleanPro aims at establishing robust model systems to test IV meat and milk production, and to generate the necessary know-how on IV food production, which will contribute to Denmark’s future positioning in this field.

In four research work packages we will

1. Establish robust bovine mammary and muscle cell cultures with the capacity to grow, while still maintaining the characteristics to produce milk and meat
2. Test alternatives to calf serum as growth media aiming at serum-reduced production
3. Characterize the functionality of the produced products
4. Develop Life Cycle Assessment models of the IV produced CleanMeat and CleanMilk produced under the developed production systems.

Two PhD projects are part of CleanPro

·         CleanMeat – future sustainable meat protein

·         CleanMilk – future sustainable milk protein