Lab-grown meat safe for human consumption by U.S. regulator

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the first time certified a meat product grown from animal cells for human consumption, the agency announced on Wednesday.

The US food and drug administration (FDA) will allow a California company called Upside Foods to take living cells from chickens and then grow them in a controlled laboratory environment to produce a meat product that doesn’t involve the actual slaughter of any animals.

The FDA said it is ready to approve the sale of other lab-grown meat, stating that it is “engaged in discussions with multiple firms” to do the same, including companies that want to grow seafood from the cells of marine life.

“The world is experiencing a food revolution and the (FDA) is committed to supporting innovation in the food supply,” said FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf and Susan Mayne, director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition in a statement.

“The FDA’s goal is to support innovation in food technologies while always maintaining as our first priority the safety of the foods available to U.S. consumers,” the statement added.

Upside Foods founder and CEO Uma Valeti said on Twitter that its cultivated chicken “was one step closer to being on tables everywhere.”

“UPSIDE has received our ‘No Questions Letter’ from the FDA,” Valeti tweeted. “They’ve accepted our conclusion that our cultivated chicken is safe to eat.”

“These products are not vegan, vegetarian or plant-based – they are real meat, made without the animal.”

Advocates hope that cultured meat will reduce the need to slaughter animals for food and help with the climate crisis. The food system is responsible for about a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, most of which are from animal agriculture.

“We are thrilled at FDA’s historic announcement that, after a rigorous evaluation, UPSIDE Foods has become the first company in the world to receive the US FDA greenlight for cultivated chicken,” David Kay, director of communications at Upside Foods, said via email.

“At scale, cultivated meat is projected to use substantially less water and land than conventionally-produced meat.”

USDA and FDA together regulate cell-cultured meat under a 2019 agreement between the two agencies. USDA will oversee the processing and labelling of cell-cultured meat products.