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Professor Jinkee Hong Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Prof. Hong’s Research Team Developed High Protein-Containing Food Based on Cell Powder Meat

Cost reduction of cultured meat mass production and manufacturing, increasing its chances of commercialization

Published in npj Science of Food, a partner journal of Nature


A research team led by Professor Jinkee Hong at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, College of Engineering, Yonsei University has developed high protein-containing cell powder meat, a novel cultured meat in powder form. This study holds significance as it presents new possibilities in the field of cultured meat, which is recently gaining traction around the world.


Growing meat consumption has resulted in a variety of ethical and environmental issues and shortages of resources and food. Against this backdrop, cultured meat is emerging as a clean and eco-friendly food for the future. Reducing the cost of organizing and manufacturing cells to mimic real meat, however, remains a key challenge to commercializing cultured meat.


Professor Hong's research team established cell culture conditions that could achieve a high differentiation rate of cells with high protein content, and produced novel cultured meat in powder form by culturing cells with approximately 76% greater cost efficiency than other conventional culture conditions.


More notably, the cell powder meat developed showed a protein content of 48.1%, which is much higher than the two commonly known high protein foods of beef tenderloin (protein content: 20.7%) and chicken breast (protein content: 25.7%).


Furthermore, the cell powder meat developed by the research team has the same flavor as real beef. Their flavor analysis examined what made this flavor similarity possible and confirmed that molecules detected in both the beef tenderloin and this cell powder meat had similar flavor compounds.



Bumgyu Choi, the first author of this study, said, “This study can serve as a basis for mass production and cost reduction for cultured meat in the future. The powder form of cultured meat among other proposed forms is expected to be commercialized more quickly.”


This study was funded by the theme of Artificial Eco-Food under the Industrial Technology Alchemist Project of the Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT) and the Biomedical Technology Development Project of the National Research Foundation of Korea. The results were published on April 11 2023 in npj Science of Food, one of the most prestigious journals in food science and technology published by Springer Nature.

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