lab grown meat (1)

The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Food Standards Scotland (FSS) have been awarded a £1.6M grant as part of round one of the Engineering Biology Sandbox Fund, which aims to test innovative regulatory approaches for products like cultivated meat. Cell-cultivated products are foods created through the isolation of cells from meat, seafood, fat, offal or eggs which are grown in a controlled environment. It could result in food production which is more environmentally friendly and sustainable, using just 1% of the land used for animal equivalents, while increasing food security. Programmes like this will help bring innovative food products to shop shelves safely but without unnecessary delay and at lower costs, giving consumers more choice.  There are a number of challenges to address in the regulatory approval, and subsequent enforcement, of cell cultivated products, not least of which is authenticity verification (how to ensure that the product on sale has been produced only using the regulatory-approved process, scaffolds and starting materials)

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