With a draft legislation recently introduced to the European Commission, Italy is seeking to prohibit the production and marketing of cell-based meat, as well as the sale of plant-based proteins labeled as meat.

Wageningen University and Research (WUR) has announced the launch of its Safe Precision Fermentation (SAFERMENT) project, which is aimed at enhancing the safety of animal-free dairy protein production. The project consortium is still open to additional partners and encourages interested parties to contact WUR.

The Dutch government has partnered with the cultivated meat industry to develop a code of practice for the facilitation of taste tests for cell-cultured meat and seafood products prior to receiving market approval.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA’s FSIS) has updated its sampling program for cell-cultured meat and poultry products, providing new instructions to inspection personnel and enforcement officers.

FAO has prepared a short factsheet for food safety authorities to grasp the contents of a previously released publication, titled, “Food Safety Aspects of Cell-Based Food.”

Companies UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat both recently announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) gave them a Grant of Inspection (GOI) and label approval to sell cultivated chicken.

Cultivated meat (i.e., cell-cultured meat) has been promoted as an alternative to the livestock industry as a more sustainable, safer, and healthier means of food production. However, several regulatory and safety hurdles must be addressed for cultivated meat to reach the commercial market, as it has not yet been declared safe for consumption in the U.S. Safety considerations for cell-cultured meat include the components utilized (the raw ingredients, the source of cells, scaffolds, and bioreactors), the introduction of adventitious agents, and the presence of drug/chemical residues in the final food product. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized meat from gene-edited pigs, produced by researchers at Washington State University (WSU), for human consumption. The gene-editing tool CRISPR is being used to modify genetic traits of the line of pigs. 

The first global report on the food safety aspects of cell-based foods has been published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). The report is intended to provide a solid scientific basis to begin establishing regulatory frameworks and effective systems to ensure the safety of cell-based foods.

The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) recently conducted an analysis of hazards associated with cultured meat products (also known as “cell-based” or “cultivated” meat) and identified several risk areas while acknowledging that there are still existing knowledge and data gaps.