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Why Do High Costs Remain a Major Challenge for Precision Fermentation Scale-Up?
Precision fermentation’s main disadvantage is currently high production costs from expensive bioreactors, low titers, and purification, hindering cost parity despite sustainability benefits.
Question
Which of these is a disadvantage of precision fermentation?
A. It requires minimal land for production
B. It produces minimal waste
C. It currently has high production costs
D. It can be scaled to large commercial production
Answer
C. It currently has high production costs
Explanation
Precision fermentation, while promising for sustainable protein and ingredient production, faces significant economic hurdles due to its early-stage technology status, including high capital expenditures for specialized bioreactors and downstream purification equipment, elevated energy and media costs during microbial cultivation, and low initial product titers that demand large-scale operations to achieve cost parity with conventional methods. These factors result in production costs often exceeding $50/kg at demonstration scales, limiting widespread adoption despite advantages in land efficiency and waste reduction, with ongoing innovations in strain engineering and process optimization needed to drive costs down to competitive levels around $8-13/kg.