In A Win for Cultivated Meat, Novel Foods Could Be Temporarily Exempt from UK-EU Trade Deal

The UK and EU have agreed on a deal to remove post-Brexit checks on agrifood trade, with novel foods set to receive a temporary exemption to preserve the former’s regulatory progress on cultivated meat.

Cultivated meat companies hoping to bring their products to the UK could be breathing a sigh of relief.

The country has now agreed a draft deal with the EU to remove post-Brexit checks and red tape on food imports and exports to make it easier for goods to be transferred between them.

The sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement would have had a knock-on effect on the novel foods sector, forcing cultivated meat and precision fermentation firms to go through the EU’s notoriously long and complex novel food process to sell their products in the UK, despite the latter’s shift away from the pre-Brexit regulatory framework.

However, experts say the deal is set to include temporary exemptions for categories like gene-edited plants and novel foods, a key demand of the British industry. It could mean the UK follows EU decisions to approve or reject products, but sets its own rules for novel foods that the EU is yet to assess.

In either case, innovations would only have access to the UK market, with companies needing to pass EU safety checks to sell in its member states. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is set to update businesses on any regulatory implications once the negotiations conclude at the UK-EU summit on November 20.

“If it goes ahead, a temporary novel food exemption would have a significant positive impact on efforts to bring products such as cultivated meat and precision fermentation to the UK market,” Linus Pardoe, senior UK programme manager at the Good Food Institute Europe, told Green Queen.

UK novel food progress risked being undone without exemptions

For several years after exiting the EU in 2020, the UK continued to follow the bloc’s novel food regulations. But in 2024, it began overhauling its framework to fast-track approval timelines for companies.

The FSA launched a two-year cultivated meat sandbox programme, through which it’s working with businesses and researchers to design standards and guidance for new products. Over the last year, this has resulted in the publication of several guidance documents aimed at providing companies with more clarity on applications.

Separately, the regulator established a £1.4M Innovation Research Programme with the help of the government’s new Regulatory Innovation Office, aiming to enhance its expertise and ability to carry out risk assessments on fermentation technologies, while providing greater clarity to fermentation companies on how to file for approval.

However, the SPS agreement was set to sidetrack these efforts. The FSA had reportedly warned around 600 approval holders and businesses that the deal could render UK authorisations void and require them to follow the EU’s process instead, which can take up to six years.

In its latest cultivated meat guidance documents, the FSA noted that the regulated products framework in the UK and the EU is the same: “This means that this guidance will be relevant for any cell-cultivated product businesses considering applying to either the Great Britain or EU market authorisation systems, regardless of the outcome of the SPS agreement.”

The uncertainty around the trade deal caused some cultivated meat companies to pause their plans in the UK, including BeneMeat, which said it had invested in the country, built local partnerships, prepared controlled tastings, entered talks about manufacturing there, and filed a regulatory dossier to sell its cultivated meat for human food.

In an open letter, the firm urged UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham to ensure that any SPS agreement preserves the UK’s ability to assess and approve novel food products based on its own scientific evidence and timeline. Food bosses have been working on a deal to secure temporary arrangements, which would enable the FSA to continue its work on regulating innovative foods.

“It’s positive to see reports of a time-limited exemption for novel foods as part of negotiations about a new SPS arrangement between the UK and the EU,” said Pardoe. “However, this has not been publicly confirmed by the UK government, the European Commission, or member states, and we need to wait for negotiations to conclude at the summit later this month.”

More clarity expected after UK-EU summit

The regulatory sandbox runs until February, and the FSA will keep its guidance updated to reflect any regulatory changes. The existing market authorisation process is still in place, and it’s prioritising the assessment of existing and new innovative food applications, including cultivated meat.

The agency is already assessing several safety dossiers filed by cultivated meat startups for human food applications, including Ivy Farm Technologies, Aleph Farms, Mosa Meat, BeneMeat, and Parima‘s Gourmey and Vital Meat. Three of these are based in the EU, and Parima is the furthest ahead in the process.

Some have chosen to focus on pet food instead, like Meatly, which was the first to be cleared to sell cultivated meat for dogs and cats in the UK (and globally) in 2024. BeneMeat has already registered its cell-cultured hamster meat as a pet food ingredient in the EU, teaming up with Forza10 to establish the Coolty Meat brand of dog food. And today, Ivy Farm announced its UK approval for cultivated Wagyu beef for pets.

There will be more clarity about the novel food implications of the SPS agreement after the EU-UK summit later this month, which was delayed by six months following a change in the British prime minister. That has also reportedly pushed back the implementation of the new rules until the first quarter of 2028.

“The FSA and Food Standards Scotland have been working to modernise the UK’s approach to risk assessing novel foods and have developed significant regulatory expertise that will benefit both UK and European innovators,” said Pardoe.

“After a devastating summer for European food production due to extreme heat, it is critical that the UK and EU work together to create a more resilient food system, including enabling innovative food production techniques to scale by clarifying regulatory pathways.”