The agricultural revolution of the Neolithic era transformed this relationship. As humans settled into wetlands rich in natural resources and began cultivating crops and domesticating cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats, meat consumption became more predictable but also more constrained. Livestock represented long-term investments, and the meaning of meat shifted from opportunistic game to managed capital. Archaeological studies reveal that this dietary transition came at a cost: overall protein intake declined, human height decreased from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic, and conditions such as osteomalacia, dental cavities, and malnutrition became more prevalent among populations reliant on high-carbohydrate, low-protein diets. Meat also became embedded in ritual, hierarchy, and identity, with slaughter ceremonies and distribution patterns reflecting social stratification in early agrarian societies.

Throughout the Middle Ages and into the Industrial Revolution, meat remained a marker of class and power. Livestock served primarily as sources of labor, dairy, wool, and leather, and most ordinary people rarely ate fresh meat. After the Black Death devastated the labor force in the fourteenth century, landowners expanded livestock breeding for profit, and a growing rural economy increasingly depended on animals. Scientific advances in forage production, selective breeding, and animal husbandry, together with urbanization and mercantilism, gradually increased supply. The Industrial Revolution mechanized slaughtering and butchering, turning meat processing from a small craft into a science-based industry dominated by sausages, bacon, and canned products. By the twentieth century, vaccines, optimized feed formulas, and global cold-chain logistics had made meat a daily staple in many developed nations.

Today, however, that industrial success has collided with serious global challenges. The Food and Agriculture Organization projects that the world population will reach 9.73 billion by 2050, driving continued growth in demand for animal protein even as livestock production accounts for an estimated 14 to 21 percent of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, primarily methane from enteric fermentation and manure management. Public health debates, including the controversy over red and processed meat consumption, animal welfare concerns about factory farming, and consumer shifts toward vegetarian and flexitarian diets, have intensified pressure on conventional producers. A new review by Dongheon Lee and Cheorun Jo of Seoul National University, published in Food Science of Animal Resources, argues that the industry must respond with technological innovation rather than incremental change, and it maps out the most promising avenues now under development.

Among the most transformative of these is the application of artificial intelligence and hyperspectral imaging to meat quality assessment. Hyperspectral imaging captures both spatial and spectral information simultaneously, collecting wavelengths from the visible range of 400 to 750 nanometers into the near-infrared and mid-infrared regions up to 25,000 nanometers. The spectral signatures reflect molecular changes, such as the vibration and stretching of C-H, O-H, and N-H bonds from moisture, amides, and lipids, and even the fluorescence of NADH produced during microbial and endogenous enzyme activity. Machine learning and deep learning algorithms, including partial least squares regression, support vector machines, and convolutional neural networks, are then trained on these data to predict freshness, amino acid content, lipid oxidation, and sensory attributes such as saltiness, fatness, and umami taste. Researchers have even developed smartphone applications equipped with artificial neural networks that allow consumers and suppliers to estimate beef tenderness from a simple image, suggesting a future where quality evaluation is democratized across the supply chain.

Complementing these imaging technologies, metabolomics of meat exudates offers a non-invasive route to quality prediction. Nucleotide-related metabolites derived from ATP degradation and amines such as tyramine, produced by microbial metabolism, correlate strongly with conventional spoilage indicators like pH, volatile basic nitrogen, and total bacterial counts. Models built on drip metabolites have successfully predicted freshness in packaged chicken and pork loin, while metabolomic profiling also reveals flavor precursors that determine palatability. At the farm level, smart livestock farming integrates the Internet of Things, digital sensors, wireless networks, robotics, and artificial intelligence into a three-step process of data acquisition, AI-assisted decision-making, and autonomous execution. Studies have demonstrated the power of this approach in practice: deep learning algorithms paired with closed-circuit television networks have accurately identified known and newly introduced Hanwoo cattle, while convolutional neural network models have detected anemia in small ruminants to optimize parasite management. Precision feeding systems further tailor nutrient delivery to individual animals, improving economics and animal welfare simultaneously.

Genomic technologies represent perhaps the most radical intervention in conventional meat production. Tools such as CRISPR/Cas9, zinc-finger nucleases, transcription activator-like effector nucleases, and base editing enable rapid introduction of genetic variation that would take generations through traditional breeding. Researchers have produced avian leukosis virus-resistant chickens, PRRS virus-resistant pigs, and mycobacterium-resistant cattle, reducing reliance on antibiotics and addressing antimicrobial resistance concerns. Knocking out the myostatin gene, a negative regulator of skeletal muscle growth, improves growth performance and meat quality traits including pH, shear force, and intramuscular fat content. Insertion of the heat-tolerance gene SLICK from Senepol cattle into Holstein genomes enhances thermoregulation, while editing of genes such as IGF2, MyoD1, and fat-1 targets cell proliferation, differentiation, and the conversion of n-6 to n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. Yet public acceptance, inconsistent regulation across countries, and concerns about off-target effects remain significant barriers, prompting a shift toward safer, more precise base and prime editing platforms.

Climate resilience is another critical frontier. Strategies include installing shade infrastructure and irrigation, adjusting feeding regimes to cooler times of day with electrolytes and heat-tolerant forages, and selective breeding for thermotolerance. Dietary manipulation offers a powerful mitigation tool: upcycling food wastes, by-products, and insect-based proteins into livestock feed reduces global feed demand and alleviates food-feed competition, while supplementation with dietary oils and phytochemicals has been shown to decrease enteric methane emissions. Interestingly, research on climate adaptation has concentrated heavily on ruminants, leaving a significant gap for non-ruminants such as chickens and pigs, whose meat consumption is comparable or higher in many countries. Small-scale farmers who cannot afford costly adaptation infrastructure may also switch to heat- and water-tolerant species such as goats and donkeys, although the review’s authors note this is a coping strategy rather than a fundamental solution.

Beyond improving conventional production, the review highlights cellular agriculture as a complementary paradigm. Cell-based food, also known as cultivated or cultured meat, is produced by isolating animal stem cells, proliferating them in nutrient-rich media, differentiating them into muscle fibers, adipocytes, or connective tissues, and scaffolding them to create structured products. The field has moved remarkably fast: the first 100-gram beef patty, unveiled by Mark Post’s team in the Netherlands in 2013, cost roughly $330,000 to produce, but the price of a cell-based patty had dropped to $11.36 within four years, and the cost of chicken patty production has now fallen below $1,190 per kilogram. Singapore approved the first commercial cell-based products in 2020, the United States followed in 2023, and Israel and Hong Kong granted approval in 2024. In 2025, the FDA approved the first cell-based fat and cultivated salmon products for commercialization. Key research priorities now include serum-free media development to eliminate fetal bovine serum, edible and biodegradable scaffold materials, vascularization strategies to deliver oxygen and nutrients in dense tissues, and co-culture of muscle and fat cells to reproduce marbling and flavor complexity.

Precision fermentation and hybrid cell-based foods round out the emerging protein landscape. Precision fermentation uses genetically engineered yeasts and fungi to produce heme proteins, structural proteins, enzymes, lipids, and flavorings that are functionally identical to their animal-derived counterparts, enhancing the color, flavor, and nutrition of meat alternatives. Hybrid cell-based foods blend animal, plant, and microbial components, with plant proteins typically comprising 20 to 50 percent of formulations to exploit their biocompatibility and structural flexibility, while mycelium-based ingredients add dietary fiber, phenolic compounds, and antioxidant capacity. The authors emphasize that these technologies will not replace conventional meat but rather complement it in a mixed-model food system. Conventional meat retains advantages in sensory richness, nutritional value, and cultural familiarity, while cell-based and plant-based alternatives address sustainability, ethics, and resource efficiency. Consumer acceptance remains the decisive variable: food neophobia, price expectations, and perceived unnaturalness are the principal obstacles, though studies show that transparent scientific information and safety assurance can significantly reduce skepticism. As Lee and Jo conclude, the future of meat will depend on how thoughtfully and responsively we innovate its production, with meat science expanding into a multidisciplinary endeavor that integrates biotechnology, tissue engineering, artificial intelligence, and synthetic biology to build resilient and sustainable food systems.

Subject of Research: Innovations in meat production technologies and cellular agriculture for sustainable food systems

Article Title: The future of meat: innovations in production within an expanding and sustainable food system

Article References: Lee, D., & Jo, C. (2026). The future of meat: innovations in production within an expanding and sustainable food system. Food Science of Animal Resources, 46(1), Article 93. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44463-026-00079-4

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44463-026-00079-4

Keywords: meat production, cellular agriculture, cultivated meat, hyperspectral imaging, artificial intelligence, smart livestock farming, CRISPR gene editing, climate resilience, greenhouse gas emissions, precision fermentation, hybrid meat products, food sustainability