Lab-grown foie gras and chicken are being tested by scientists to ensure they are safe for humans to eat, and could hit British restaurants and dinner tables in the next five years.
It is the closest any such “cultivated meat” product has yet come to approval for human consumption in the UK, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) said today as it published an update on “innovative” foods.
Other products like edible insects, 3D-printed chocolate, vegetables with extra vitamins and cheese that is “brewed” in a lab could also reach the public in roughly the next 15 years, the regulator said.
“The science enabling these innovations is exciting and our food system is changing at a rapid pace,” Dr Thomas Vincent, deputy director of innovation at the FSA, told Sky News.
Last year the agency was awarded £1.6m by the government to develop a new system to ensure these novel foods are safe to eat.
It followed complaints by the industry that Britain’s approval process was too slow to keep up with rapid innovation.
Dr Vincent added: “No new foods reach UK shelves unless they meet our high food standards, so the public can be assured that the food is safe and what it says it is.”
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But the pioneers of these new products have allowed limited previews. Sky News signed a waiver to try pork meatballs grown in a laboratory, and found them authentically crispy and oozing fatty juices.
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The industry has high hopes that the meats can feed a growing global population with a lower environmental impact, since they don’t need the land, food or water demanded by a herd of pigs or cattle.
So far it has made more progress with meat products like mince, that can be mixed with other ingredients, than it has with whole cuts like steaks or filets, that have structures that are harder to replicate.
But producers still need to overcome “consumer scepticism” and the challenge of scaling up, the FSA said.
Dr Sarah Najera Espinosa, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said novel technologies could “not only help reduce some of the health and environmental pressures we face, but could also create new jobs and strengthen our food resilience by bringing more production back home”.
But she also warned of “trade-offs” – amid concerns about the high costs and impact on farming.
What is lab-grown meat?
So-called “cultivated meat” – the term the industry prefers to “lab grown” – is made by taking a tiny clump of cells from plants or animals, which are then fed in a lab so that they multiply, in the same way they naturally would in a growing muscle or plant.
Meanwhile certain types of insects are also worming their way into our food chain.
They can be sold whole, or in future are expected to be mixed into familiar foods like a burger to displace some of the meat or add protein.
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Four species are already on sale in the UK, under temporary arrangements after Britain’s exit from the EU, while they undergo further safety assessments.
Insects can contain structures similar to some crustaceans, with allergens one of the things assessed for safety.
The FSA will also test new foods for things like carcinogens, toxicity, and to ensure there are no adverse impacts from “ultra-processing”.
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Further off in the future are technologies that use plants as tiny factories to produce specific food ingredients, and “gas fermentation” which uses microbes to convert captured carbon dioxide into edible proteins.
The industry is seeking to keep the public onside with mysterious new food types by providing regular updates – in an attempt to learn from previous backlash in Europe to genetically modified food, which was successfully introduced elsewhere.
Professor Jonathan Jones from The Sainsbury Laboratory said: “The main lesson from the 90s is that where innovation is deployed about which consumers might have concerns, clear labelling and clear communication are required.”
