Nonprofit think tank the Good Food Institute Europe (GFI Europe) has welcomed plans in the EU’s Biotech Act to expand the advice regulators provide to innovators bringing new foods to market.

However, it has described the European Commission’s decision to exclude novel foods from a proposal to create regulatory sandboxes – controlled and time-limited environments that enable experts to design standards for new products – as a missed opportunity.

The Biotech Act, which aims to boost the bloc’s global competitiveness in biotechnology, is mainly focused on the health sector but also includes measures that can help commercialise the findings of European researchers working on techniques such as precision fermentation. 

This process has been used for decades to produce ingredients like rennet for cheese, and its use is now being expanded to make foods ranging from animal-free dairy proteins to sustainable palm oil.

Companies applying to sell new foods made with precision fermentation in the EU must apply to the European Food Standards Authority (EFSA), who will carry out a thorough and evidence-based assessment of their safety and nutritional value before they can be sold across all 27 member states.

The Act proposes that EFSA expand the guidance it provides to companies applying to sell new products, allowing startups to request advice from regulators on the technical and scientific information their applications need to include before making submissions. It also provides details about additional EFSA staff to ensure that this pre-submission advice function is properly resourced.

The measure can help support innovation by making the application process clearer, preventing lengthy authorisation delays caused partly because European startups lack the clarity needed about the type of data required. 

However, the Commission has excluded novel foods from provisions to establish a series of regulatory sandboxes, on the grounds that they may “trigger ethical or cultural concerns among various consumer segments regarding their acceptability”. 

GFI Europe has called for sandboxes to be introduced across all regulatory food and feed categories, including novel foods, to ensure that the full range of new production technologies benefits from these opportunities.

Research conducted by the think tank with Accenture found that around half of consumers in France, Germany, and Spain were willing to try dairy and egg products made using precision fermentation if they were given a free sample or if someone else prepared it for them. Around one in five would add these products to their diet.

GFI Europe has also called on the Commission to build on plans to establish a pilot investment facility supporting the scale-up of health biotechnology industries, by proposing ambitious new financing for food biotechnologies in a planned second Biotech Act, expected to be published in late 2026. 

This will address issues caused by startups struggling to bring fermentation products to market because Europe lacks the large-scale facilities needed to ramp up production.

Seth Roberts, Senior Policy Manager at GFI Europe, said: “By expanding the regulatory guidance available to food innovators, the Biotech Act will play an important role in bringing new products to market in a way that meets the EU’s world-beating safety standards, helping to drive green growth, reduce our reliance on imports and boost competitiveness.

“But the Commission’s decision to block novel foods from the sandbox rollout is a disappointing move that marks a missed opportunity to drive forward evidence-based regulation while providing a forum for open dialogue that can give consumers more confidence in new products.”