Toward Meat-like Texture: Scaffold Design Strategies for Improving the Texture of Cultured Meat

Cultured meat has emerged as a promising alternative to conventional meat due to its potential to improve sustainability, animal welfare, and food supply stability. However, successful commercialization requires not only the efficient generation of muscle tissue but also the reproduction of the texture, sensory attributes, and nutritional value of conventional meat. To date, most studies have primarily focused on promoting cell adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation on scaffolds, while scaffold design strategies specifically aimed at achieving meat-like texture remain comparatively underexplored. This review provides a broad overview of scaffolds used in cultured meat production and summarizes recent advances in scaffold design strategies to enhance textural properties, with an emphasis on achieving texture and eating quality comparable to those of conventional meat.