Lab-grown meat could be coming to UK plates as landmark research underway

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Louise Thomas

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Lab-grown meat could be on sale in the UK within the next few years, as the government funds £1.6 million worth of research into cell-cultivated products.

Awarded to the Food Standards Agency (FSA), the regulator will launch a programme to learn more about lab-grown meat and how safe it is for people to eat.

Cell-cultivated products are made using cells from plants or animals, which are grown in a controlled environment to create food products. Sometimes called ‘lab-grown meat’ this is somewhat misleading, as they are not classified as meat, but products of animal origin.

Alongside Food Standards Scotland, the FSA’s cell-cultivated products programme (CPP) will last two years. The end of this process could pave the way for the controversial meat alternative to be sold in the UK.

Professor Robin May, FSA Chief Scientific Advisor, said: “Ensuring consumers can trust the safety of new foods is one of our most crucial responsibilities.

“The CCP sandbox programme will enable safe innovation and allow us to keep pace with new technologies being used by the food industry to ultimately provide consumers with a wider choice of safe foods.”

Cell-cultivated products have been in development since the early 2000s. In 2013, the world’s first lab-grown burger was debuted in London, created by Dutch scientists and sampled by food critics. The research behind it cost £215,000.

The subsequent years saw lab-grown meat become more mainstream, as several companies were launched aimed at regular consumers. However, it is still not approved in most countries.

So far, Singapore’s government is the only one in the world to allow the sale of lab-grown meat to consumers, signing off on it in 2020. However, tech magazine Wired reports that very few restaurants actually sell the products.

Earlier this year, the US Department of Agriculture signed off products made by Upside Foods, which take muscle, fat and tissue cells from fertilised chicken eggs to grow near-identical chicken meat. This gave the company long-awaited approval to sell its product in the country.

The slow progress internationally may point to more roadblocks along the way for the products in the UK and Europe. However, some are hopeful that these artificial foods could bring about a sustainable food revolution.

Linus Pardoe, Senior UK Policy Manager at the Good Food Institute Europe, said: “This announcement sends a clear message that the new government wants to capitalise on the strong investments made in British cultivated meat research and innovation over recent years by bringing products to market in a way that upholds the UK’s gold standard safety regulations.”

“Cultivated meat could play a key role in boosting food security, driving growth and helping us hit our climate targets.”