The food security guard dog is to run a program created to ensure cell-cultivated items (CCPs) are risk-free for customers to consume.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA), with Food Standards Scotland, won the quote to be granted ₤ 1.6 million in financing from the Government’s Engineering Biology Sandbox Fund (EBSF) for the two-year program.
CCPs are brand-new foodstuff made without making use of standard farming techniques such as rearing animals or expanding plants and grains.
With using scientific research and innovation, cells from plants or pets are expanded in a regulated atmosphere to make the brand-new item.
There are presently no CCPs accepted for human intake in the UK.
Announcing the financing, the FSA stated it required to find out “about these products and how they’re made, to make sure they’re safe to for consumers to eat”.
“The sandbox programme will allow us to recruit a new team to work across the FSA and FSS. They will gather rigorous scientific evidence on CCPs and the technology used to make them.
“This information will enable us to make well-informed and more timely science and evidence-based recommendations about product safety and address questions that must be answered before any CCPs can enter the market.
“It will also allow us to better guide companies on how to make products in a safe way and how to demonstrate this to us.”
Professor Robin May, primary clinical consultant at the FSA, stated: “Ensuring consumers can trust the safety of new foods is one of our most crucial responsibilities.
“The CCP sandbox programme will enable safe innovation and allow us to keep pace with new technologies being used by the food industry to ultimately provide consumers with a wider choice of safe foods.”
