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Edible scaffolds are needed in cultured meat to mimic meat's three-dimensional structure by organizing cells and replenishing the insufficient meat mass of cells alone. However, there is still a large gap between slaughtered meat and cells developed into tissues using scaffolds. This is mainly due to the difference in size, texture, flavor, and taste. In this study, we develop a coating matrix to modify the surface of textured vegetable protein (TVP), a vegetable cell support, to produce cultured meat having slaughtered meat's essential characteristics. We optimized the fish gelatin/agar matrix's microstructure by controlling the ratio of the two biopolymers, stably introducing a cell adhesive environment on the TVP. By coating the optimized gelatin/agar matrix on the TVP's surface using an easy and fast dipping method, hybrid cultured meat composed of animal cells and plant protein was produced. As the cells proliferated, their synergistic effect permitted the cultured meat's texture, flavor, and taste to reach a level comparable to that of slaughtered meat. The TVP-based cultured meat prepared with the present technology has been recreated as high-quality cultured meat by satisfying five challenging factors: cells, texture, cost, mass, and flavor.

Cell cultured meat is artificial meat obtained by culturing animal-derived cells in vitro, and received significant attention as an emerging future protein source. The mass proliferation of cells in the cultured meat production is a strenuous process that delays the commercialization of cultured meat because it requires an expensive culture medium for a long period. Herein, we report on a strategy to develop advanced cultured meat using fish gelatin mass growth-inducing culture (MAGIC) powder and myoblast sheets. The MAGIC powder had an edible gelatin microsphere (GMS) structure and exhibited different morphologies and bonding activities depending on the degree of crosslinking. We analyzed the loading and release of nutrients for each GMS with diverse surface properties, and selected the most effective GMSs to improve the proliferation of myoblasts under serum-reduced medium. The GMSs exerted four significant functions in the culture of myoblast sheets, and consequently produced cost- and time-effective meat-like cell sheets than the conventional method. We prepared cultured meats composed of cell sheet containing GMSs and evaluated the quality of the cultured meat by comparing the tissue properties with soy meat and chicken breast.