Recent advancements in the commercial production of synthetic food for global food security: Future prospectives and challenges

Background: Currently, we are facing huge pressures to fulfil the demands for nutritious, safe and cheaper food due to the tremendous increase in the total world population, limited agricultural land and food resources, the unavailability of high-yielding crop plant varieties, and anthropogenic activities. Climatic changes in the environment have affected livestock, crops, forestry, aquaculture, and fisheries, and affects food security in complex ways which can cause economic consequences, eroded livelihoods, trade disruption, and adverse health impacts.

Objectives: The aim of this review is to address the need to develop some alternative food production system which can fulfill our current qualitative and quantitative food requirements. To resolve this unavoidable problem, researchers are trying to create synthetic food in such a way that they can minimize the environmental impact on food production.

Outcomes: Synthetic foods are created artificially in a controlled laboratory setting and under industrial conditions instead of through natural methods. The development of the synthetic biology field revolutionized the food industry for sustainable food manufacturing in the future. The major technologies used for the production of synthetic foods are cell culture, tissue culture, stem cell technology, fermentation, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The synthetic food available includes lab-grown meat, plant-based meat alternatives, veggie meat burgers, vegan cheese, shrimp made of algae, and lab-grown ricotta and mozzarella. Despite these advancements, there are many challenges in the production of synthetic foods, such as standardized lab protocol, cell sourcing, the availability of synthetic materials, side effects, ethical challenges, and the safe use of synthetic foods.