Trailblazing cultivated meat companies join cell-based program to accelerate regulatory approval

Mosa Meat is one of eight firms collaborating with the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) in a partnership poised to take cultivated meat to the next level. The two-year tie-up is geared toward helping the industry navigate the regulatory landscape of the burgeoning cell-based industry.

The collaboration — called CCPs Regulatory Sandbox — is designed to advance co-learning with the industry on key food safety issues for the benefit of all regulatory applicants and risk assessors working to efficiently evaluate new cell-cultivated products (CCPs).

The term “sandbox” refers to a controlled environment supervised by a regulatory authority in which existing regulations are relaxed or removed to allow businesses to experiment more freely with new products and services.

The sandbox program, funded by the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology’s Engineering Biology Sandbox Fund, will ensure that CCPs are safe for consumers before they are sold while also supporting innovation in the sector.

Other members join Mosa Meat: Hoxton Farms (UK), BlueNalu (US), Gourmey (France), Roslin Technologies (UK), Uncommon Bio (UK), Vital Meat (France), and Vow (Australia).

Mosa Meat has been a trailblazer in cultivated meat. In 2013, its founders introduced the world’s first cultivated beef hamburger, grown directly from cow cells.

Since then, it has been considered one of the leading pioneers in the cell-based space. It is backed by a host of investors, including Hollywood actor and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio, who joined Mosa Meat as an advisor and investor in 2021. 

Fostering open dialogue between industry and regulators

The Netherlands-based food tech firm’s latest collaboration follows the cultured beef pioneer’s submission for EU market approval of cultivated fat. Cultivated fat is critical to delivering the taste, aroma, and mouthfeel that people expect from high-quality beef, making it a natural first step toward introducing cultivated beef to consumers.

Also, last month, the company raised £3.2 million (US$4.1 million) in fundraising. 

The FSA selected eight CCP companies worldwide to participate in the program following a rigorous selection process to represent the diverse, international range of technologies, processes, and ingredients used in CCP production. 

Mosa Meat will work with scientists, regulatory experts, academic bodies, the CCP industry, and trade organizations to gather scientific evidence about CCPs and how they are made. The aim is to inform how the FSA and Foods Standards Scotland (FSS) regulate these products.

The evidence will enable the FSA to assess CCP applications more efficiently and ensure safety prior to commercialization.  

The FSA will provide clearer guidance to businesses and address questions that must be answered before any CCPs can enter the market.  

Working toward market authorization

Mosa Meat hopes its participation in the sandbox will provide invaluable information to be built into the upcoming market authorization request in the UK, thereby reducing potential delays.  

“We are honored to be one of the few included in this government funded collaborative program, and excited to contribute the knowledge of our 70+ scientists toward a co-learning process that benefits the Food Standards Agency and other cultivated meat and seafood companies,” says Mosa Meat’s co-founder, Dr. Mark Post. 

“These are exactly the kind of public-private partnerships we envisioned when we debuted the world’s first cultivated burger in London in 2013.” 

Cultivated meat is produced directly from cells and is identical to conventional meat at a cellular level. Benefits include more efficient and climate-friendly production compared to regular meat.

Post is in London this week to mark the beginning of the CCPs Regulatory Sandbox. 

“Safe innovation is at the heart of this program. By prioritizing consumer safety and making sure new foods, like CCPs, are safe, we can support growth in innovative sectors. Our aim is to ultimately provide consumers with a wider choice of new food, while maintaining the highest safety standards,” says Professor Robin May, chief scientific advisor at the FSA.