The role of techno-economic and life cycle assessment in guiding precision fermentation towards sustainable food production

Precision fermentation (PF) is emerging as a promising approach for producing food ingredients through microbial processes, yet its true sustainability remains uncertain. While PF is often portrayed as an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional animal-based production, its actual performance depends strongly on how processes are designed, scaled, and operated. Current research and industry practice tend to emphasise technical feasibility and product functionality while overlooking the broader economic and environmental trade-offs that emerge during scale-up. This commentary argues that the iterative and prospective integration of techno-economic analysis (TEA) and life cycle assessment (LCA) is essential to bridge this gap and guide PF towards sustainable implementation. We discuss how these complementary tools can be jointly applied across PF research and development (R&D) to identify cost and sustainability hotspots early, inform process optimisation, anticipate regulatory constraints, and enhance stakeholder confidence. Three dimensions are examined in depth: (i) process development, optimisation, and scale-up; (ii) environmental regulatory compliance; and (iii) building stakeholder trust. The commentary concludes with recommendations for integrating TEA and LCA from the earliest R&D stages, developing PF-specific datasets and models, and fostering collaboration between industry and researchers to ensure that PF scales both economically and sustainably. • Iterative TEA and LCA improve decision-making throughout PF development stages. • Waste and effluent management are critical yet often overlooked in PF scale-up. • Feedstock and electricity have significant cost and environmental trade-offs. • TEA and LCA support regulatory readiness and stakeholder engagement strategies.