UK lab-grown meat startup Meatly has become the first company in the world to get regulatory clearance to sell pet food made from cultivated meat. It’s also the first in Europe to have a cultivated meat ingredient approved for sale.
The regulatory approval means that Meatly’s cultivated ‘chicken’ product — which it sells to the pet food manufacturers it partners with — can be sold in the UK to get on shelves by the end of 2024.
Europe’s cultivated meat conundrum
European startups working on cultivated meat — where animal cells are grown in a lab into meat created without harming living beings — raised around $121m in 2023, according to Dealoom. But until now, no cultivated meat products have been granted approval for sale by Europe’s regulatory bodies. It’s only approved for sale in the US, Singapore and Israel – and even in those markets, sentiment is split. Last month, US foodtech Upside Foods hosted a tasting of its cultivated meat product in Florida ahead of an incoming ban there, and soon after made layoffs of around 26 people, according to US media.
Owen Ensor, CEO and founder of Meatly, hopes that the company’s milestone approval could open the door for others in the industry: “the UK has become the first country in Europe to approve a cultivated meat product for sale; this is a significant milestone for the industry. It highlights the UK is a proactive, pro-innovation place for cultivated meat companies to thrive,” he says.
“I hope this will encourage other European regulators to accelerate their work on cultivated meat. We also hope to be able to use the UK approval to kickstart conversations with EU and US regulators.”
Taste tests and consumer trust
Targeting non-human consumption is one way around the regulatory pressures and varied consumer perceptions of lab-grown meat, which is why Meatly has focused on pet food first.
“Pet food is the fastest route to commercialisation in this market. Everything we do will drive this category on and help to scale cultivated meat more broadly,” Ensor tells Sifted.
The company submitted its application for regulatory approval to the UK’s Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) in August 2023 and had its approval granted in July 2024. “The challenge was deciding the right regulatory pathway for a new ingredient. Through our open, transparent, and constructive discussions, DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) were able to confirm the correct pathway. We then worked with APHA to get authorisation for our production site,” says Ensor.
Pets eat 20% of the world’s meat and the global pet market is expected to grow to almost $500bn by 2030. Ensor says that more owners want to extend their planet-friendly mentality to their pets, driving demand for alternative foods that are better for the environment but still loved by animals.
“Our pets crave meat, and most people want to feed them meat, but they also want to make sustainable choices and not harm other animals. This is really difficult to achieve with traditional meat. We give consumers an easy choice — real meat that is sustainable, healthy and kind,” he says.
The next step before products hit the shelves is “academically robust” tests to prove safety and that pets enjoy the taste; these will take place next month. “This will involve recruiting a cohort of dogs and feeding them pet food made with Meatly chicken. We’ll check that these dogs find Meatly chicken as delicious as my cats did before starting to sell products,” says Ensor.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/meatly-cultivated-meat-approval-news/
