Laboratory -grown food can be sold in the UK in two years

Meat, milk and sugar grown in a lab may be on sale in the UK for first human consumption within two years, faster than expected.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is looking at how it can speed up the approval process for increased foods in the laboratory.

Such products grow from cells to small chemical plants.

Firms in the UK have led the road in this field scientifically, but think they were held behind by current regulations.

Dog food made of meat that had grown in factory vases went on sale in the UK for the first time last month.

In 2020, Singapore became the first place to authorize the sale of meat cultivated in the cell for human consumption, followed by the United States three years later and Israel last year.

However, Italy and the US states of Alabama and Florida have created prohibitions.

The FSA will develop new regulations working with experts from high -tech food firms and academic researchers.

He says he intends to complete the full assessment of the safety of two increased laboratory foods within the two-year process that is starting.

But critics say having the firms involved in the drafting of new rules is a conflict of interest.

The initiative is in response to the concerns of firms in the United Kingdom that they are losing ground to abroad competition, where approval processes take half the time.

Profin Robin May, FSA’s leading scientist, told the BBC News that there would be no compromise on customer safety.

“We are working very closely with the companies involved and academic groups to work together to design a regulatory structure that is good for them, but at all costs ensures that the safety of these products remains as high as it can,” he said.

But critics such as Pat Thomas, director of the campaign group beyond GM, are not convinced by this approach.

“The companies involved in the help of the FSA to design these regulations are those that are likely to benefit from deregistration and if that were any other type of food product, we would be angry at it,” she said.

The Minister of Science, Lord Vancece, dealt with the process described as “deregistration”.

“It’s not deregistration, it’s pro-partition adjustment,” he told the BBC News.

“It is an important difference because we are trying to get the regulation with the needs of innovation and reduce some of bureaucracy and duplication.”

Adult foods in the laboratories are grown in plant or animal tissue by small cells. This can sometimes include gene editing to tear food properties. The claimed benefits are that they are better for the environment and potentially healthier.

The government is inclined to flourish the raised food firms in the lab because it hopes they can create new jobs and economic growth.

The UK is good in science, but the current approval process is much slower than in other countries. Singapore, US and Israel in particular have faster procedures.

Ivy Farm Technologies in Oxford is ready to go with a laboratory -grown steak, made from cells obtained from Wagyu and Aberdeen Angus cows.

The firm applied for approval to sell its steaks at restaurants at the beginning of last year. Director General of Ivy Farm, Dr. Harsh Amin, explained that two years was a very long time to wait.

“If we can shorten it in less than a year, while maintaining much the highest of Britain’s food safety standards, it would help start companies like ours to thrive.”

Dr. Alicia Graham has a similar history. Working at the Bezos center of the Imperial College in West London, she has found a way to increase an alternative to sugar. It involves the introduction of a gene found into a berry in the top. This process enables it to produce large amounts of crystals that make it enjoy sweet.

It doesn’t make you fat, she says, and so is a potential sweetener and a healthy substitute in glowing drinks.

In this case I am allowed to enjoy it. It was extremely sweet and slightly sour and fruit, remembering the lemon sherbet. But the firm of Dr. Graham, Madesweetly, is not allowed to sell it until it receives approval.

“The way to get the approval is not straightforward,” she tells me.

“They are all new technologies, which are not easy for the regulator to continue with it. But that means we do not have a specific way of approval of the product, and that is what we would like.”

The FSA says it will complete a complete assessment of the safety of two increased laboratory foods within the next two years and will have the beginnings of a faster and better system for applications for the approval of new raised foods in the laboratories.

FSA’s Prof May says the purpose of working with experts from the companies involved, and academics is to get the right to science.

“It can be quite complex, and it is important that we understand science to make sure the foods are safe before they authorize them.”

But Mrs Thomas says these high -tech foods may not be as environmentally friendly as they are made to be as they need energy to make them and in some cases their health benefits are being overseen.

“Laboratory -grown foods are ultimately elaborate foods and we are in an era where we are trying to make people eat less ultra -processed foods because they have health implications,” he said.

“And it’s worth saying that these ultra -processed foods have not been in the human diet before.”