Guidance for businesses developing cell-cultivated products has been published by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Food Standards Scotland (FSS) as part of a milestone in the Cell-Cultivated Products (CCP) Sandbox Programme.
The guidance, which is funded by the Department of Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST) through the Engineering Biology Sandbox Fund, covers regulatory authorisation and the assessment of growth media components and toxicology. Together, they were said to give food businesses “clearer, more detailed advice” on how existing food regulations apply to cell-cultivated products.
FSA said this would help businesses to prepare for stronger applications and “understand the standards they must meet” to bring products safely to market in Great Britain. Currently, there are no cell-cultivated food products authorised for the GB market.
“We’re building a shared understanding of how food regulations apply to genuinely novel products, and turning that understanding into practical guidance the whole sector can benefit from.”
Dr Thomas Vincent, FSA
Dr Thomas Vincent, deputy director of innovation at the FSA, commented: “Each batch of guidance we publish makes the path to market authorisation clearer and more predictable for companies developing cell-cultivated products, while ensuring consumer safety remains at the core of everything we do.
“Through the Sandbox programme, we’re building a shared understanding of how food regulations apply to genuinely novel products, and turning that understanding into practical guidance the whole sector can benefit from.”
The regulatory authorisation guidance looks to set out how the regulated products framework applies to cell-cultivated products, including how to handle changes to an authorised product. The growth media and toxicology guidance aims to give scientific direction on assessing safety hazards linked to growth media components and support businesses preparing dossiers for regulatory review.
It is the third set of guidance to come from the Sandbox Programme, which launched in February 2025 and runs until February 2027. Through the programme, the FSA and FSS work directly with businesses to build regulatory understanding of these products, using the insight gained to produce practical guidance for the wider sector.
FSA has also recently published research on cell-cultivated products, including a review of analytical methods for cell-cultivated products and how genetic drift can impact the safety of cell-cultivated products. It said this will be “useful to applicants considering the evidence to include in their market authorisation application”.
