Proof-of-Concept for Cell Culture-Based Duck Fat Production on a Laboratory Scale

Cultured meat has been gaining ground in recent years as an innovative approach to address the potential scarcity of meat supply. Fat is one of the key components of meat in terms of flavor and juiciness. However, the production and scale-up of fat from agriculturally relevant animals have not been extensively investigated, particularly in scalable bioreactor systems. The culture of primary duck embryonic fibroblast (DEF) proliferation and adipogenesis in various lab-scale bioreactors for cultured meat purposes was explored. Cytodex 1 microcarriers were used to culture DEF in two proprietary serum-free media: ProDuck4.0 for proliferation and LipoDuck2.0 for adipogenesis. Proliferation and differentiation conditions of DEF were optimized in shake flasks through Design of Experiments (DoE) and then the culture was transferred to lab-scale bioreactors operating in perfusion with different agitation regimes. A rocking motion bioreactor (RMB), an orbitally shaken bioreactor (OSB), and a stirred tank bioreactor (STB) were assessed to scale up the production process. Results showed that DEFs exhibited high sensitivity to shear stress, particularly in RMB and OSB systems, which led to impaired cell growth. In contrast, STB supported DEF proliferation and adipogenic differentiation, reaching full confluency and a cell concentration of 489,000 cells·mL⁻¹ and an intracellular triglyceride accumulation of 380 pg·cell⁻¹, comparable to those achieved in shake flasks. These findings highlight the potential of using STBs for scaling up duck fat production for cultured meat applications.