The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared laboratory-grown meat for human consumption for the first time.
The US regulator said it had completed its first pre-market consultation of a human food made from cultured animal cells.
US start-up UPSIDE Foods, which grows meat from cells taken from a healthy live chicken, will be able to deliver its food to the market once its facility meets US Department of Agriculture and FDA requirements.
“The agency evaluated the information submitted by UPSIDE Foods as part of a pre-market consultation for their food made from cultured chicken cells and has no further questions at this time about the firm’s safety conclusion,” the FDA said in a statement.
The voluntary pre-market consultation is not an approval process in itself, but means that the FDA currently has no further questions.
In addition to the FDA’s requirements, including facility registration for the cell culture portion, the manufacturing establishment needs a grant of inspection from USDA-Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) for the harvest and post-harvest portions and the product itself requires a USDA mark of inspection.
The FDA said the world is experiencing a food revolution and that it is committed to supporting innovation in the food supply.
More innovative food supply is needed as the world’s population is expected to reach 10bn by 2050.
London-listed BSF Enterprise PLC (LSE:BSFA) said on Tuesday that its wholly owned subsidiary, 3D Bio-Tissues, successfully produced three prototypes of lab-grown meat.
READ: BSF jumps after unveiling first fillets of lab-grown meat