Guilt-free foie gras and 3D-printed chocolate could soon be on supermarket shelves, food regulators have said.
The Food Standards Agency is assessing the safety of lab-grown duck, which could be used to create cruelty-free foie gras.
Foie gras, a delicacy of French cuisine, is made from duck or goose liver after the birds are force-fed. The practice of making it is banned in Britain, although the product can be imported.
However, the FSA said cell-cultivated products could offer alternatives for products that are unethical to produce or grow.
Dr Joshua Ravenhill, the head of the FSA cell-cultivated products programme, said: “We have got two applications, one for cell-cultivated duck and one for cell-cultivated chicken, which is going through our risk assessment.
“We will be looking at the scientific hazards and then they come up with a recommendation about what those hazards are.
“And then we look at labelling etc and then public consultation and then we make a recommendation to ministers.”
Risks eliminated
Cell-cultivated meat, or lab-grown meat, is produced by growing animal cells in a lab, meaning it does not require raising or slaughtering animals.
It also eliminates risks associated with farm animals, such as bacterial contamination from E. coli or salmonella and avoids the need for antibiotics used in animal agriculture.
The cells are identical to those found in traditional meat but are grown in a solution that allows them to develop the muscle, fat, and other tissues which give meat its texture and flavour.
Cultivated meat products are already available in Singapore, the US, Israel and Australia and are likely to become more widespread as the costs come down.
Other innovations are likely to be 3D-printed foods which are created layer upon layer, such as specialist chocolate, though these are not expected to reach a broad market in the next five to 10 years and are likely to be expensive, the FSA warned.
But foods built from scratch could help personalise nutrition, for example, for people who have difficulty swallowing for medical reasons.
Further off in the future, Britain could see technologies which use plants as tiny factories to produce specific food ingredients, and gas fermentation which uses microbes to convert captured carbon dioxide into single-cell proteins for use in food.
Dr Thomas Vincent, deputy director of innovation at the FSA, said: “Emerging technologies are reshaping how our food is produced and sourced.
“The food system is always evolving and, as a regulator, we need to keep pace with that and keep pace with the industry so that we can help ensure that new products are safe.”
The FSA said it would be ensuring that new production methods meet food safety and hygiene standards, and nutritional values, particularly for meat-replacement products as well as considering the long-term health impacts.
“What we do is a really thorough, holistic safety assessment that looks at things like allergenicity, but also at toxicology, at microbial contamination of food,” Dr Vincent added.
“It looks at acute risks, so things that might happen once you eat food, but also at chronic risks, so there’s longer-term potential risks, and that includes things like carcinogens, for example.”