UK invests £1.4 million in boosting Food Standards Agency’s precision fermentation expertise

The UK government has invested £1.4 million in a new innovation hub, enabling the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to expand its expertise in new technologies including precision fermentation.

Nonprofit and think tank the Good Food Institute Europe (GFI Europe) has welcomed the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) funding, which aims to ensure consumers can have confidence in these new foods when they come to the UK market.

Precision fermentation uses organisms such as yeast to produce ingredients like whey protein, which bring the familiar flavour and texture of foods like meat, eggs and cheese to plant-based products.

The process has been used for decades to produce ingredients such as rennet for cheesemaking, but its use in alternative proteins is relatively new. 

A Life Cycle Assessment of French company Bon Vivant’s precision fermentation milk protein, conducted in collaboration with independent experts from the public research body INRAE, found that it caused 72% fewer emissions, used 81% less water and used 99% less land than cow’s milk. 

Diversifying our protein supply to include foods produced using precision fermentation could deliver significant economic benefits – one estimate indicates that the UK’s alternative protein industry could add £6.8 billion each year to the country’s economy and create 25,000 jobs by 2035.

Precision fermentation dairy proteins have yet to reach British consumers, but the UK’s rigorous regulatory process run by the Food Standards Agency is now evaluating several applications and interest is growing even at this early stage.

The UK government has invested in a network of university research centres focused on advancing foods such as precision fermentation, including the Microbial Food Hub, the Cellular Agriculture Manufacturing Hub (CARMA) and the National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre (NAPIC).

Today’s announcement is part of the UK government’s new Regulatory Innovation Office (RIO) and will boost the FSA’s ability to carry out risk assessments on precision fermentation-made products while providing greater regulatory clarity to startups wanting to sell them in the UK.

The funding is separate from the FSA’s regulatory sandbox for cultivated meat, announced at the end of last year, which will enable regulators to work alongside companies, academics and organisations including GFI Europe to expand their knowledge about cultivated meat.

Linus Pardoe, Senior Policy Manager at GFI Europe, said: “This announcement shows the government is working to capitalise on the UK’s potential to become a world leader in food innovation, helping entrepreneurs work with scientists to bring products to market in a way that upholds our gold standard safety regulations.

“Focusing on precision fermentation – a hugely promising way to reduce the climate impact of many foods – is a particularly welcome move, and investing in the FSA’s risk assessment capacity is a positive step towards modernising the regulatory pathway to deliver benefits to the public and innovators.”