Science Shorts: Cultivated meat cell line outsourcing, 2022's top 10 science stories, food to aid mental health and more feature in our round-up

Offering options: NZ’s Opo Bio looks to help cultivated meat firms outsource cell line stresses​

New Zealand’s Opo Bio is seeking to help cultivated meat firms cut out a large portion of the initial legwork needed to procure and develop suitable cell lines, believing that this will take help encourage commercialisation and target the mainstream market.

Opo Bio lays claim to the title of being New Zealand’s first cultivated meat firm, and its first major area of focus is in bovine muscle cells that can be developed into cultivated beef products.

“There are quite a few cultivated meat companies in the market today and the general practice is for everyone to develop their own cell lines in house because they have to as there are no commercial options available to them,”​ Opo Bio CEO Dr Olivia Ogilvie told FoodNavigator-Asia​.

Scientific spotlight: The Top 10 most read science, research and technology stories in 2022​

See our top 10 most read science, research and technology stories from 2022, featuring scientific updates on alcohol and COVID-19, gluten-free diets, cultivated meat and more.

Research for mental health: Huge scope for new studies on synergistic impact of ingredients​

There is huge scope for more research on how a broad range of ingredients can work synergistically to improve a raft of mental health conditions.

That’s according to an expert from Australia’s Deakin University Food and Mood Centre which specializes in researching the role of diet and nutrition for mental health.

“The role that food and nutrition plays when it comes to mental health is a pretty new field of research, but there has been knowledge of a strong association between diet quality and types of food consumed and the positive or negative effects of these on mental health,”​ Food and Mood Centre Senior Research Fellow Dr Wolfgang Marx said.

Natural meat preservative: More research needed for wider application of lactic acid bacteria - Review​

More studies are required before lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and bacteriocins can be commercialised as a natural alternative to antibiotics and chemical preservatives in meat, say researchers in India and Spain.

Microbial contamination and chemical deterioration of perishable foods like meats and meat products can lead to health risks among consumers and economic losses in the meat industry. To address these issues, LAB and their active metabolites, bacteriocins, can act as a natural alternative to antibiotics and chemical preservatives typically used in meat products.

Combo craze: ‘Contradictory’ flavour combinations rising in popularity among younger APAC consumers​

Younger consumers in APAC are increasingly seeking out food and beverage products that offer a combination of ‘contradictory’ flavours, according to experts in the region.

While, combined flavours such as spicy and cheesy might be traditionally thought less than appealing, they have emerged to become a major trend.

Backed by its new intelligence tool Panoptic, flavour experts at IFF have found that this is especially so for younger consumers in the region, who tend to seek out more tantalising experiences compared to their older counterparts.

“Combination flavours are a really big trend here today, and there tends to be an element of spice to this as well – so although there are more familiar combinations like sweet-sour, now the combinations are more contradictory per se such as spicy and sour,”​ IFF Greater Asia Regional Marketing Leader Michelle Lee told FoodNavigator-Asia​