The UK government has now confirmed the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) plans to change the way that key alternative meat products, such as precision fermentation and cultivated meat, are regulated. The changes will be enacted early next year.
The timetable for the plans, which also included changes to other regulated products such as food flavourings and animal feed additives, was confirmed on 18 September and follow a major report outlining the essential changes needed to improve UK food security.
The FSA plans to introduce a new public register of regulated products. This will replace the current system in which a Statutory Instrument must be laid down before a new product can be placed on the market. This, the FSA estimates, can add up to six months onto the time it takes to approve a new product (a process that currently takes around two and a half years).
Under the new system, novel food products will be able to be published in the register after approval via ministerial decision, rather than through the introduction of secondary legislation. Furthermore, products already authorised as safe will no longer need renewing.
This process will speed up novel food review and authorisation, an FSA spokesperson told FoodNavigator. However, the FSA stressed that it will continue to carry out stringent and evidence-based assessments on a new product’s safety and nutritional value before it can be sold in the UK.
“It’s positive to see the Food Standards Agency taking much-needed steps to modernise its process while continuing to enforce one of the world’s most robust regulatory systems – but these measures should just be the start,” said Linus Pardoe, policy manager for the organisation Good Food Institute, reacting to the news.
“Alternative proteins can play a key role in boosting food security and growing the UK’s green economy. But to deliver these benefits while ensuring consumers can have confidence in new foods, the government must urgently bring forward more ambitious proposals such as collaborating on risk assessments with international partners and establishing a regulatory sandbox for cultivated meat.”
The UK government’s investment in alternative proteins
The UK government has made several investments in alternative proteins in the past few years. Last month, it announced the opening of a new National Alternative Protein Innovation Hub (NAPIC), to be opened in the University of Leeds, which will explore plant-based, fermentation and cultivated meat.
In February, the setting up of a fermentation hub at Imperial College, London, to focus on traditional, biomass and precision fermentation, was announced.
In its National Vision for Engineering Biology paper in December 2023, the UK outlined its commitment to alternative proteins, including the creation of regulatory sandboxes to allow companies to test out their ideas.
Last year, the opening of the Cellular Protein Manufacturing Hub (CARMA), set up in order to develop cultivated meat to scale, was announced.