The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA), with Food Standards Scotland, has published a third batch of guidance for companies developing cultivated meat, this time on regulatory approval and on assessing growth media, Green Queen reports. The papers come from a regulatory sandbox programme that runs until February 2027 and is funded by the Department of Science and Technology.
The growth media and toxicology guidance sets out how to assess safety hazards linked to the nutrients cells are grown in: listing every component, documenting an inventory and analysing its toxicology, including genotoxicity and human data. The approval guidance describes a six-step process from validation and risk assessment to public consultation and ministerial approval, and says any change to manufacturing outside an authorisation, for example during scale-up, needs a new application.
"Each batch of guidance we publish makes the path to market authorisation clearer and more predictable for companies developing cell-cultivated products, while ensuring consumer safety remains at the core of everything we do," said Thomas Vincent, the FSA's deputy innovation director. The agency has now issued eight such documents since December.
The progress is clouded by the UK's planned sanitary and phytosanitary agreement with the EU, due in mid-2027, which could force companies through the EU's longer novel food process; the FSA has reportedly warned around 600 approval holders that UK authorisations could be voided. Czech firm BeneMeat said last month it was pausing its UK plans. The FSA says the guidance applies to either market, since Britain's framework is the same as the EU's. So far only Meatly has UK clearance, for pet food; Aleph Farms, Ivy Farm, Mosa Meat, BeneMeat, Gourmey and Vital Meat have applied for human food approval.
Photo: World Economic Forum / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Source: Green Queen
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