In which countries is cultured meat allowed?
At the moment, only one country in the world has authorized the retail sale of cultured meat, others are making some exceptions and are awaiting the go-ahead from the regulatory authorities. All the details
Cultured meat is a hot topic not only here but all over the world. Currently, however, only Singapore has authorized its retail sale and Israel and the United States could be next.
SINGAPORE, THE FIRST AND ONLY
It was December 2020 when Singapore announced the approval of "a lab-grown meat product". It was a "cultured chicken" food made by Eat Just, a San Francisco startup that described its product as "high-quality real meat created directly from animal cells for safe human consumption."
HOW TO GET THE LICENSE OF A NOVEL FOOD IN SINGAPORE
The website of the innovative city-state authority states that "to ensure rigorous review of safety assessments, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) established a working group of food safety experts in March 2020 to provide scientific advice ”.
The expert working group, explains the SFA, is chaired by the head of the Center for Regulatory Excellence and includes experts in food toxicology, bioinformatics, nutrition, epidemiology, public health policy, food science and technology.
Citing precisely the example of "cultured chicken", the SFA states that the panel of experts "conducted an extensive and thorough review of Eat Just's safety assessments regarding food safety risks" and having found no problems “has been authorized to be sold in Singapore as an ingredient in its nuggets”.
THE TURN OF BUSINESS
There are at least 36 alternative protein companies in Singapore, which have collectively raised more than $213 million in funding, according to the Good Food Institute think tank.
Only Israel is comparable in funding to startups and infrastructure dedicated to the sector.
ISRAEL, BETWEEN INNOVATION AND RELIGION
Israel, although not yet authorized for retail sale, in November 2020 announced the opening near Tel Aviv of The Chicken, the world's first cultured meat restaurant. The restaurant, wrote The Jerusalem Post , is located near the SuperMeat factory, the Israeli company that produces it.
But if there is no shortage of startups and technology, Israel has to face another type of question: can meat produced in the laboratory be considered kosher, or does it respect the dietary dictates established by the Torah and followed by observant Jews?
Religious authorities have been debating the issue for years but last January Chief Rabbi David Lau, Israel's top Jewish authority, after consulting with the production and research teams of Aleph Farms in Israel gave their blessing to their steak. And even if the kosher certification can only be issued by an institution in charge, it is still an important step forward for the sector.
Meanwhile, Aleph Farms has announced that it will also ask for halal certification for Muslim communities and an opinion for observant Hindus who do not eat beef.
IN THE UNITED STATES, APPROVAL IS NEAR…
The United States, according to Reuters , would probably be ready to follow Singapore as early as this year. To make this possibility seem concrete is the opinion issued in November by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in which it stated that a product based on cultivated chicken meat from the Californian company Upside Foods "is safe for human consumption".
…BUT SUCCESS SEEMS FAR AWAY
However, the real problem doesn't seem to be licensing but other hurdles companies have to overcome to reach supermarket shelves. Among these, listed to the news agency by Upside Foods, Mosa Meat, Believer Meats and Good Meat, are consumer reluctance and insufficient funding to scale up production, and therefore the impossibility of selling products at a more affordable price. According to the Good Food Institute, the cultured meat sector has raised nearly $2 billion in investment globally so far.
Finally, a 2022 study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology found that 35% of meat eaters and 55% of vegetarians would be "too grossed out" to try cultured meat.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/in-quali-paesi-e-autorizzata-la-carne-coltivata/ on Mon, 03 Apr 2023 13:37:42 +0000.