THE Food Standards Agency (FSA) has won a bid to run a two-year programme designed to make sure cell-cultivated products (CCP), or lab-grown meats, are safe for consumers to eat before they are approved for sale.

Meats grown artificially have been popularised by many environmental activists as they are made without traditional farming practices, largely being made from plant or animal cells bioengineered in a lab or other controlled environment.

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 two-year programme will see a team gather evidence on cell-cultivated products (lab grown meats) and they will be responsible for making sure the products are safe to eat before they go on sale.The two-year programme will see a team gather evidence on cell-cultivated products (lab grown meats) and they will be responsible for making sure the products are safe to eat before they go on sale. (Image: Canva) “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.”

The FSA has been given £1.6 million funding from the Government’s Engineering Biology Sandbox Fund (EBSF) to test the safety of products to consumer health.

The Food Standards Agency highlighted that the UK could become one of the largest markets for lab grown meats in Europe, but products are yet to be approved here for human consumption.

As part of the programme, the Food Standards Agency will recruit a dedicated team to gather evidence on cell-cultivated products, the technology used to make them, thus making sure evidence-based recommendations are given to the public, with product safety at the forefront.

£1.6 million of funding has been allocated to the bioengineering programme£1.6 million of funding has been allocated to the bioengineering programme (Image: Canva) The scheme will also allow the agency to guide companies on how to make their products in a ‘safe way’ and how to show that using evidence. Labelling of products will be researched as part of the programme.

A spokesperson for the Food Standards Agency, said: “The volume of evidence and expertise we’ll have built up by the end of the two-year programme means that we’ll be able to process CCP applications more swiftly and support businesses better in their applications.

“The sandbox will also help us develop assessment approaches that can be applied to other innovative foods, helping support innovation across the global food sector.”

What are your thoughts on cell-cultivated products, aka lab-grown meat?