The world is heading towards a breaking point. By 2050, more than 9.5 billion people will need feeding — at the very moment climate change, land scarcity, and extreme weather are putting unprecedented strain on our food systems.
In this episode of Tech Tomorrow, Zühlke’s David Elliman sits down with Illtud Dunsford — farmer, entrepreneur, and CEO of Cellular Agriculture Ltd. — to ask a deceptively simple question: is the global food crisis a problem that only technology can solve?
Meet the guest: Illtud Dunsford
Illtud Dunsford grew up on a cattle farm in Wales. Today, he is the CEO and Co-founder of Cellular Agriculture Ltd., a company building hollow-fibre membrane bioreactors to grow cultivated meat — meat produced directly from animal cells, without raising a whole animal. His perspective is uniquely grounded: rooted in tradition, but focused firmly on the future.
Key takeaways of the episode
Complementing, not replacing farming
Cultivated foods grow directly from animal or plant cells, offering the same nutrition as meat while using far fewer resources. Dunsford is clear that this isn’t about erasing traditional agriculture:
“I don’t think anybody believes cultivated foods will replace animal farming. It’s something that will be complementary. The goal is the same product, just produced in a more efficient way.”
Scaling takes patience, both in food and tech
Cellular Agriculture’s journey began in 2015 with a prototype reactor just 60mm long. Nearly a decade later, the company is proving it can scale to industrial production. But the lesson, Illtud says, is that progress takes patience:
“The challenge over the last 10 years really has been how to scale. We’ve gone up in stages from one to the next.”
For Elliman, the story is familiar. In software engineering, from self-driving cars to AI breakthroughs, ambitious visions succeed only when broken into realistic, incremental steps. Both industries show that evolution, not revolution, delivers real change. The lesson is the same: progress comes from patient, persistent iteration.
Breaking silos to accelerate progress
Cultivated meat isn’t one technology — it’s a convergence of many. Cell lines, feedstocks, scaffolds, and downstream processing all need to work in harmony.
The lesson resonates with Elliman’s world of software engineering. DevOps and platform engineering showed that breaking down silos accelerates delivery. The cultivated food industry is going through the same shift: connection creates capability.
Beyond the hype cycle
Unlike most industries, cultivated foods skipped the usual pattern of slow academic build-up followed by government funding. Instead, it jumped straight into a wave of Silicon Valley investment. The result was a hype bubble, with many early companies “probably too early stage to form an industry,” Illtud recalls.
Now, the pendulum is swinging back. Governments, particularly in the UK, are stepping in to support research and scale. And investors are looking for sustainable growth rather than quick wins. The cultivated food industry is finding its footing — a story tech veterans will recognise.
From nice-to-have to essential
Right now, cultivated foods still face scepticism, and some consumers still feel a ‘yuck factor’. But the pressures of climate change are changing the narrative fast. Extreme weather is already threatening foods like beef, coffee, and chocolate, making them harder to produce.
“We’ve thought we needed a load of new technologies, but until we get there it feels like a nice-to-have,” says Dunsford. “At some point, it becomes essential.”
Technology as an amplifier, not a saviour
The conversation ends on a sobering note. Technology can help us, but it can’t save us on its own: food waste, overconsumption, and inequality are human and political challenges and cannot be solved by tech.
Just as social media connects families while fuelling misinformation, or AI boosts productivity while threatening skills, cultivated foods will amplify our choices.
Elliman reflects: “Technology is a powerful amplifier, but it amplifies human decisions, both good and bad.”
Which brings us back to the core question. Dunsford’s answer is clear:
“Is the global food crisis a problem only technology can solve? Definitely not. Humanity can do atrocious things, but we can also have amazing ideas. I still have faith in the human race to solve these challenges.”
