Valorization of food side streams for sustainable cultivated meat production

The scalability and economic viability of cultivated meat remain constrained primarily by two bottlenecks: the high cost and serum dependence of culture media, and the reliance on animal-derived or biomedical-grade materials for scaffold fabrication. Food side streams offer a promising route to address both challenges, as they are generated at industrial scale and naturally contain diverse nutrients, bioactive components, and structural biopolymers relevant to cell culture and tissue development. Through established processing strategies, such as hydrolysis, fermentation, and extraction, these heterogeneous residues can be transformed into more accessible ingredients that supply functional nutrients, serum-mimetic activities, and scaffold-forming polymers with tunable physicochemical properties. Such valorization aligns cost reduction with circular-bioeconomy principles, positioning food side streams as multifunctional resources for cultivated-meat production. However, significant limitations remain in functional validation, standardization, safety, and scalability. By integrating current knowledge on composition, processing approaches, and functional performance, this review critically evaluates the opportunities and limitations of side stream-derived inputs and identifies key scientific and technological priorities required to support their reliable, safe, and scalable use in cultivated-meat biomanufacturing.