Cultivated meat (cell-based meat) is being developed as an alternative to conventional animal products. Understanding its animal welfare implications informs support and advocacy decisions.
Cultivated meat represents a potential technological solution to the welfare harms of conventional animal agriculture at scale. If cultivated meat can be produced at cost parity with conventional meat, the welfare benefit of eliminating the need to raise and slaughter billions of animals annually is potentially enormous. The welfare considerations that remain involve the initial cell donors - animals from whom starter cell lines are established - and the continued use of fetal bovine serum as a growth medium in some production. Research into animal-free growth media is actively addressing this concern. The long-term welfare trajectory of cultivated meat, if it achieves commercial viability and consumer adoption, is strongly positive for farm animals globally.