Fake meat meeting planned

Recent developments in growing foods from animal cell cultures has led to much discussion among agricultural groups and government agencies.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association has been preparing for an upcoming public meeting regarding fake meat.

On July 12, the Food and Drug Administration will hold a public meeting from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. EST at the Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Wiley Auditorium in College Park, Maryland, entitled, “Foods Produced Using Animal Cell Culture Technology.”

Danielle Beck, NCBA’s director of government affairs, said in a statement, “NCBA looks forward to participating fully in the public meeting, and will use the opportunity to advocate for U.S. Department of Agriculture oversight of lab-grown fake meat products. The FDA’s announcement disregards the authorities granted to USDA under the Federal Meat Inspection Act, as well as USDA’s significant scientific expertise and long-standing success in ensuring the safety of all meat and poultry products. Under the current regulatory framework, FDA plays an important role in terms of ensuring the safety of food additives used in meat, poultry and egg products. All additives are initially evaluated for safety by FDA, but ultimately FSIS maintains primary jurisdiction.”

The public meeting is intended to provide interested parties and the public with an opportunity to comment on emerging lab-grown protein technology. The public meeting is not a formal decision and will not prevent USDA from asserting primary jurisdiction.

Electronic comments regarding this issue must be submitted on or before Sept. 25, 2018, at https://www.regulations.gov.

Recent technological advances and consumer interest has spurred the development of commercial-scale production of foods intended to resemble traditional meat, poultry and seafood but are manufactured using, generally, a small amount of cells from the type of animal the food is intended to resemble, according to the FDA.

The collected cells are multiplied using nontraditional food technologies adapted from cell culture applications widely used in research and increasingly in medicine. Most or all starter cells for food applications will come from living animals for the foreseeable future for commercial and marketing reasons. Currently, animal cells can be produced from the starter cells in bioreactors, a scaled-up application of traditional cell culture techniques.

USDA oversight of lab-grown protein products is consistent with existing federal laws. Lab-grown protein products fall within statutory definitions of a meat byproduct. USDA is responsible for ensuring the safety and proper labeling of all such products under the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Poultry Products Inspection Act.

Jennifer Carrico can be reached at 515-833-2120 or [email protected].