The possibility of food made from cultured livestock or poultry cells on supermarket shelves is one step closer after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it had completed its first pre-market consultation of a human food made from cultured animal cells. The agency evaluated the information submitted by UPSIDE Foods as part of a pre-market consultation for their food made from cultured chicken cells.
The acceleration in investment comes as more consumers want to know how their food consumption impacts the environment as the effects of climate change are felt across the globe. An estimated one-third of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions come from food production and scientists warn it’s nearly impossible to meet climate goals without changing agriculture.
As a result, food producers are getting creative when it comes to meeting consumer and government expectations when it comes to climate action and food production, leveraging off advancements in cell culture technology enabling them to use animal cells obtained from livestock, poultry and seafood in the production of food.
UPSIDE Foods, previously Memphis Meats, was one of the first companies in the cultivated meat space and will produce the cell-cultured chicken by harvesting cells from live animals and using the cells to grow meat in stainless steel tanks.
However, before the lab-grown food can enter the market, there are still a few more boxes to tick.
The facility where the cultured meat will be made also needs to meet strict US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and FDA requirements.
The FDA’s approach to regulating products derived from cultured animal cells involves a thorough pre-market consultation process. While this is not considered an approval process, it concludes when all questions relevant to the consultation are resolved. A transition from the FDA to USDA-FSIS oversight will take place during the cell harvest stage.
Sharing the news in a joint statement, FDA commissioner Robert Califf and Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition director Susan Mayne said the world is experiencing a “food revolution”, but did not indicate if there are any other cultured meat applications in the pipeline.
In an interview chief operating officer Amy Chen lauded the FDA approval as “a tremendous moment for the company and the cultivated meat industry”.
“What will be wonderful is that consumers now who may have heard about this and may have dismissed this as science fiction, will see this news and realise that this is coming maybe much sooner than they think,” she said.
It’s expected that UPSIDE will be able to produce more than 22,679kg of cultivated meat products a year.
