The proposal, already approved by the upper house Senate, passed by 159 votes in favour to 53 against, prohibiting the use, sale, import and export of food and feed “from cell cultures or tissue derived from vertebrate animals”.

Factories breaching such rules can be subject to fines of up to 150,000 euros ($162,700) and risk being shut down, while owners may lose their right to obtain public funding for up to three years.

The proposal of Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida, a close aide of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, is seen as part of a broader bid by the rightist coalition to safeguard tradition.

As the debate in parliament was under way, tensions erupted between demonstrators from agricultural lobby group Coldiretti and two opposition lawmakers, one of whom claimed the president of the lobby group, Ettore Prandini, had assaulted him.

“I believe it is subversive that the president of Coldiretti believes he can assault a lawmaker,” lawmaker Benedetto Della Vedova said, adding he would report Prandini to police. Della Vedova appeared to have been pushed in the chest in the incident but was not hurt.

Prandini told Reuters the lawmakers had provoked the farmers with offensive banners, and played down the confrontation.

The +Europa party and other opposition groups depicted the right-wing’s administration move as an attempt to please farmers and breeders’ lobbies, as lab-grown food is not yet available in the European Union.

Critics of the bill say producing meat without breeding animals would limit greenhouse gas emissions and provide an option for consumers who would appreciate eating a product that does not involve slaughter.

The opposition warned the government risked breaching EU single market rules by unilaterally banning the product in case the bloc ever decided to make lab food available.

Minister Lollobrigida reiterated the ban was needed to protect the food industry.

–Reporting for Reuters by Angelo Amante.

The post Italy’s parliament approves ban on lab-grown food appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The opinions are a win for cell-cultivated meat companies, executives said, because it means observant followers of Judaism and Islam could one day consume their products.

“It’s another marker around making cultivated meat a real solution,” said Josh Tetrick, CEO of GOOD Meat.

Cultivated meat is currently only sold in tiny quantities in the United States and Singapore, but companies hope private and public investors will infuse the sector with enough cash to scale production and alter diets around the world.

Cultivated meat is derived from a sample of animal cells that are fed a nutrient mix and grown in steel vats, avoiding the need for land-intensive industrial farming operations and slaughterhouses.

Companies in the fledgling industry hope their product will appeal to vegans and vegetarians as well as climate-conscious meat-eaters.

GOOD convened a panel of three sharia experts who reviewed the company’s production and on Sunday said cultivated meat can be halal if, among other factors, the cells from which the meat is made come from an animal slaughtered according to Islamic law.

Though the Oakland-area company’s chicken does not currently meet that standard, the opinion provides a roadmap for the industry to make halal products, Tetrick said in an interview.

The Orthodox Union (OU), the largest kosher certification agency, on Sept. 6 said cultivated chicken produced by Israeli company SuperMeat met its standards because the chicken cells were not fed any animal ingredients and were extracted from a fertilized egg before any blood spots appeared.

SuperMeat and the OU are working on broader guidelines for the industry, company CEO Ido Savir said.

More than 12 million people in the United States eat kosher products and eight million eat halal products, according to the OU and Islamic Services of America, a halal certification agency.

Regulators cleared cultivated chicken for U.S. consumption earlier this year and it has since been served at some high-end restaurants.

— Reporting for Reuters by Leah Douglas.

The post Lab-grown meat can be kosher and halal, experts say appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

With the approvals, the U.S. will become the second country after Singapore to allow the sale of so-called cultivated meat, which is derived from a sample of livestock cells that are fed and grown in steel vats.

The companies are the first to complete the multi-step U.S. approval process for cultivated meat. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has already determined that the meat is safe to eat.

“It is a dream come true,” said Uma Valeti, CEO of Upside, in an interview. “It marks a new era.”

The companies, which both make cultivated chicken, plan to first serve their product at high-end restaurants before scaling production to reach a lower cost for grocery stores.

Upside chicken will first be served at Bar Crenn, a restaurant in San Francisco owned by chef Dominique Crenn, the company said. Good Meat will sell its first batch of chicken to the José Andrés Group, owned by the humanitarian and chef, Good Meat said.

The companies said they are still determining an exact timeline for when the products will hit plates.

Upside told Reuters it will soon announce the location of a new U.S. production facility that is 10 to 20 times larger than its existing plant at Emeryville, Calif., just north of Oakland.

Cultivated meat companies hope their products will provide an appealing alternative for meat eaters looking for a more environmentally friendly and humane option for their cuts, and who may be unsatisfied with vegetarian products already on the market.

Livestock production generates 14.5 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

USDA earlier this month issued label approval to both companies. The FDA issued its approvals to Upside in November 2022 and to Good Meat in March 2023.

— Leah Douglas reports on U.S. ag and energy policy for Reuters from Washington, D.C.

The post U.S. regulator allows first sales of lab-grown meat appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

If the proposal is passed by parliament, Italian industry will not be allowed to produce food or feed “from cell cultures or tissues derived from vertebrate animals,” the bill seen by Reuters said.

A breach of the rules could result in fines of up to 60,000 euros (C$88,509).

“Laboratory products in our opinion do not guarantee quality, well-being and the protection of our culture, our tradition,” said minister Francesco Lollobrigida, a senior member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy party.

Meloni’s nationalist administration has pledged to shield Italy’s food from technological innovations seen as harmful, and renamed the agriculture ministry the “ministry for agriculture and food sovereignty.”

Agriculture lobby Coldiretti praised the move against “synthetic food,” saying a ban is needed to safeguard home production “from the attacks of multinational companies.”

The bill stipulates that factories where violations occur can be shut down and producers may lose their right to obtain public funding for up to three years.

Angry reactions

The initiative angered organizations supporting the development of “cell-based” agricultural products across Europe, as well as animal rights groups.

“The passing of such a law would shut down the economic potential of this nascent field in Italy, holding back scientific progress and climate mitigation efforts,” said Alice Ravenscroft, head of policy at the Good Food Institute Europe.

Food companies’ network Cellular Agriculture Europe said Italy was limiting options for consumers who are concerned about animal welfare and the environmental impact of their food choices.

Anti-vivisection group LAV called the bill “an ideological, anti-scientific crusade against progress.” It said lab-meat, which is produced from the cells of living animals, represented a good alternative to intensive breeding and slaughtering.

The ban on cell-based meat is not the only initiative from Meloni to block non-conventional food from being served on Italian tables.

Last week, she said the government was preparing a rush of decrees to introduce information labels on products containing or derived from insects, amid a debate on the use of cricket flour.

“People must be able to make an informed choice,” she wrote on Twitter.

— Angelo Amante is a Reuters correspondent in Rome.

The post Italy moves to ban lab-grown food in drive to protect tradition appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Upside Foods, a company that makes cell-cultured chicken by harvesting cells from live animals and using the cells to grow meat in stainless-steel tanks, will be able to bring its products to market once it has been inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), said a release from the FDA.

“The world is experiencing a food revolution and the (FDA) is committed to supporting innovation in the food supply,” said FDA commissioner Robert M. Califf and Susan Mayne, director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, in a statement.

The FDA said in documents released on Wednesday that it had reviewed data from the company and had no further questions about the company’s conclusion that its product is safe for humans to eat.

“We are thrilled at FDA’s announcement,” David Kay, director of communications for Berkeley, California-based Upside, said in an email. “This historic step paves the way for our path to market.”

The review is not technically an approval and applies only to Upside products, though the agency is ready to work with other firms developing cultured animal cell food, the FDA said in a release.

USDA and FDA together regulate cell-cultured meat under a 2019 agreement between the two agencies. USDA will oversee the processing and labeling of cell-cultured meat products.

Demand for alternatives to farmed meat has grown alongside awareness of the high greenhouse gas emissions of raising livestock. Cultivated chicken was served to attendees at this year’s COP27 climate conference in Egypt.

— Leah Douglas reports on U.S. agriculture and energy policy for Reuters from Washington, D.C.

The post Lab-grown meat cleared for human consumption by U.S. regulator appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.