Cell-based food: a wide array of products in the pipeline

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in collaboration with the Government of Israel held a stakeholder meeting inviting researchers and developers of cell-based foods and their input materials in September 2022. Cell-based food production involves culturing cells isolated from animals to develop products such as meat, poultry, aquatic products, dairy and eggs. Currently more than 100 companies around the world are said to develop a wide range of cell-based foods using variety of different production methods.

The comprehensive report “Cell-based food: its safety and its future role” summarizing the results of the stakeholder meeting has been published by FAO. Presenters at the stakeholder meeting discussed their original products, including chicken strips, hamburgers, beef steak and sushi salmon, as well as their input materials, such as scaffolds, cell lines and growth media to have an in-depth exchange of information particularly on the food safety aspects of the production.

The results of the discussions as well as the first-hand information shared by the presenters built a technical reference document for the later conducted expert consultation on food safety hazard identification of cell-based foods. The results of the expert consultation have been reported in the joint FAO/WHO publication “Food safety aspects of cell-based food” in detail. A summary version of the publication “Nine things to know about food safety aspects of cell-based food” is also available. All the presenters and participants from various government agencies agreed that food safety is of foremost importance, and many presenters explained that their cell-based food production processes with relevant food safety considerations in flowcharts. The report captured the overview of the 2022 status of the topic and presented the feasible way for conducting food safety hazard identifications for cell-based food.

Download the stakeholder meeting report
FAO. 2023. Cell-based food: its safety and its future role – Stakeholder roundtable meeting report, Tel Aviv, Israel, 7 September 2022. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc6967en

For more information

FAO Food Safety and Quality – Cell-based food. https://www.fao.org/food-safety/scientific-advice/crosscutting-and-emerging-issues/cell-based-food/

FAO & WHO. 2023. Food safety aspects of cell-based food. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc4855en

FAO & WHO. 2023. Nine things to know about food safety aspects of cell-based food. Rome. https://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/cc6419en

Videos

FAO. 2022. Ensuring the safety of cell-based food. Rome. https://youtu.be/Vn7OCVV_o4Y (Educational video, 20 min)

FAO. 2023. Cell-based food production and food safety. Rome. https://youtu.be/YyUoP2d3Zos (Animation, 1 min and 43 sec)

Photo: © CellX / Wang Shuai