The UK becomes the first European country to approve lab-grown meat

The UK is the first European country to authorize lab-grown meat, starting with pet food. Image: Getty images

The UK has become the first country in Europe to approve the sale of lab-grown meat. However, this cultivated meat will be used in food for cats and dogs, rather than for their owners.

Once seen as the stuff of science-fiction, cultivated meat—i.e. meat grown from animal cells in a lab—is set to become a reality in Europe. On July 2, the UK's Animal and Plant Health Agency gave the go-ahead not only for the production, but also for the sale of this type of meat. The application was submitted by the startup Meatly, which produces cultivated chicken. However, Meatly makes food destined for dogs and cats, not for human consumption. Specifically, is uses chicken egg cells to produce meat for pet food.

In the UK, everything is already getting into place for the launch. In the spring, it was reported that Pets at Home stores would be selling 150g cans of the food for GB£1. All that was needed was the green light from the regulatory authorities to see this vast project come to fruition, following a £3.5 million fundraising campaign.

This approval paves the way for large-scale pet food production. But it will reportedly take Meatly three years to implement the manufacturing processes required to achieve production at industrial volumes. According to Wired, dog food containing lab-grown meat manufactured by Meatly could be available by the end of the year.

To date, lab-grown meat has only been approved for sale in Singapore, Israel and the USA. A year ago, the Israeli company Aleph Farms submitted an application for the approval of cultured beef in Switzerland. The application was put together in collaboration with the retailer Migros, which could be selling such products within four years.

The UK thus becomes the first European country to green-light the sale of this type of food. In an interview with the Financial Times, Meatly's CEO and cofounder, Owen Ensor, says that without Brexit, it wouldn't have been possible to get approval so quickly. The CEO also acknowledges that the approval process was faster because the request concerns pet food, not human food.

Meatly is not the only start-up interested in manufacturing cat food or dog food with lab-grown meat. Last November, a Czech company obtained European Union registration for laboratory-grown meat for use in pet food. At the time, Bene Meat Technologies was only producing a few kilos of meat, but it hopes to scale up its production a hundredfold.

Elsewhere in Europe, Italy has taken a stand against this new business, even passing a law last November to ban the manufacture of lab-grown meat. And, in the US, Florida followed suit in May, giving ideas to other American states, such as Alabama, Tennessee and Arizona.