On 11 March 2024, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published its scientific opinion on cell culture-derived foods and food ingredients. The main contents include: EFSA organized a scientific symposium in May 2023 to identify the sectors of the agri-food system related to cell culture-derived foods and food ingredients, to review the latest technologies in related concepts, technologies and derived products, and to discuss emerging safety and methodological aspects and their implications for EFSA's risk assessment methodology, and study one of the following areas:

(1) Food safety hazards associated with cell culture-derived foods of animal or plant origin;

(2) New developments in engineered microbial cell factories: Considerations for their safety assessment;

(3) Development needs for the safety assessment of precision fermentation-derived food ingredients. As a next step, EFSA will consider the safety and manufacturing aspects of cell culture-derived foods and food ingredients in the final update of the EFSA Guidelines for Novel Foods, increasing communication activities and regulation around cell culture-derived foods, precision fermentation and food ingredients. Explore the possibility of how EFSA can provide more support to this innovative food industry.

Learn more: https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.2903/sp.efsa.2024.EN-8664