Episode 10 – From lab to fork

Intro (00:09:22)

Science on the Menu, a podcast by the European Food Safety Authority.

Ed (00:19:24)

Hello and welcome to another episode of Science on the menu. My name is Ed Bray and I work in the Communications Team at EFSA. And today joining me is Wolfgang Gelbmann from the Novel Foods Team at EFSA. Hi, Wolfgang.

Wolfgang (00:34:09)

Hello. Thanks for inviting me.

Ed (00:35:22)

I'm really interested to talk about what we're going to discuss today. We're talking about food, but not food as we know it. We're talking about food that is produced in a novel way and that is from cell lines. So, cell-based food. Some call it lab-grown food. At EFSA, we prefer the term cell culture-derived food. When we hear about this, we often hear about it in terms of meat, a replacement for traditional meat. So, let's start off with the most basic question: What is cell-based food? How is it produced? And what's the process, actually, for that?

Wolfgang (01:18:00)

Yes, when we talk about cell culture-derived food, we understand these are foods based on cells that have an animal origin. So, somewhere they must be sourced from an animal. Usually, they are from farmed animals, or you can also source meat. Necessarily, you do not need to slaughter an animal for this. You can also go to the slaughterhouse and take some meat, some muscle meat there and collect cells which then can be propagated. And the very closed conditions, we call them cell culture conditions, in closed compartments where you need to add water, nutrients, including vitamins, minerals, amino acids, sugar, even fatty acids, and water, oxygen. You also need to control the temperature. These cells are growing then in a highly monitored and controlled environment to increase the scale, the number of cells, which then eventually will be harvested and subject to further down-processing to make foods out of the cell culture because we do not consume the cell culture as such, but we consume foods derived from the cell culture. And that's the reason why we call it cell culture-derived foods.

Ed (02:40:19)

Okay. And the down-processing is the part where it's turned into presumably a product that looks like traditional meat. Correct?

Wolfgang (02:49:23)

Exactly. Because the cells are such as they grow, they look very different from muscle cells in an organism. And the texture is probably different. The taste is probably different if you consumed the pure cells as such. And it's the task of food business operators who want to successfully market and sell these products to then make the product from these harvested cells that ideally look and taste like conventional meat.

Ed (03:21:10)

Okay. And we're talking about meat here, but presumably this could also be the case for fish and maybe even fruit and vegetables. Is that right?

Wolfgang (03:30:15)

Theoretically, yes. Typically, I'm saying because for plants, you can also grow plant cells. Cultures are from plants. But I think it's even more challenging for plants to resemble, to mimic a product that looks like an apple or a pear or vegetable.

Ed (03:53:20)

Okay. And then the real kind of reason behind doing this is, at least from the producer's point of view, is to avoid some of the issues that are related to large scale meat production, sustainability issues, animal welfare issues, possibly, for example. Is that right?

Wolfgang (04:16:00)

Exactly. These are the two main points and arguments for this new innovative sector: to reduce animal welfare and health issues. And the second one is sustainability. And when we talk about sustainability, we know that plant vegetable food production is much cheaper than animal food production. So, for the industry, it would be more challenging to compete with vegetables or plants because they are produced with much lower cost than meat is produced nowadays. So, I think the main interest will be indeed cell culture-derived food based on animal cells.

Ed (04:52:24)

Okay. We're talking about a product that does exist on the market, if I understand well, in some other parts of the world, but is not yet on the market in Europe, is that right?

Wolfgang (05:02:24)

That's correct. In Europe, we do not have such products yet on the market. The reason is because they are considered by regulators, by the European Commission and Member States, as a novel food. And that requires an assessment, a safety assessment by EFSA and the authorisation by Member States and the European Commission. But even before EFSA can assess a dossier, we need to receive one. And we have not yet received such a dossier.

Ed (05:29:01)

Okay. But in other parts of the world, it's gone through a process and is on the market. Where is it possible actually to buy this kind of thing?

Wolfgang (05:39:07)

Yes, there was an authorisation for chicken cell culture-based food in Singapore. I think it was last year. And this type of food is formulated like chicken nuggets. So, these products have the authorisation in Singapore, but as we have heard they are sold at very low amounts. We heard about two kilograms per month.

Ed (06:00:09)

You talked about how the cell lines are derived at the beginning. You talked about there needing to be an animal within the process, but could it be possible to remove the animal from the process and for this to be suitable for vegetarians and vegans if they're ethically, you know, okay with the approach?

Wolfgang (06:20:23)

That's a very personal decision. And I think it depends on how you define yourself, how strict the limits and borders you impose on yourself are to be vegetarian or vegan. Somewhere, these cells must be sourced from meat or from an animal, so they must have an animal origin. You do not necessarily need to slaughter an animal because you can also take it from meat from certain parts of muscle cells. And you can take it once and then you propagate a lot of these cells. You multiply them a lot. In cell cultures, you can even freeze them. And later, when you want to initiate a new batch of such cell culture-derived meat or food, you just thaw them, and then you start again propagating them, cultivating them, increasing the scale, and making again a new batch of this type of food. So, you do not necessarily need to slaughter animals regularly.

Ed (07:20:00)

Hmm. You talked about there being such a relatively small quantity in Singapore. What are some of the challenges for these producers to get a product to a market like that?

Wolfgang (07:32:05)

I think the biggest reason for the technological challenges is that these cells are taken out from the tissue from an organism. And in an organism, all the cells get nourished, get the nutrients from capillaries, to get the hormones from the blood. They have the interaction with all the other cells, and they are growing in the context of the neighbour cells, let’s say, where there's a lot of interaction between different types of cells. In cell culture-derived foods we talk about cell culture based on a single type of cells, usually it's muscle cells. So, we don't have capillaries, we don't have hormone glands, we don't have a liver, kidney, we don't have other types of cells there. So, all these must be replaced and mimicked. The conditions must be mimicked to come as close as possible to the environment cells have in the organism. But still, this environment is very different. And that's I think a big challenge when it comes to large-scale production. Because cells are easy to grow two dimensional on a monolayer. But if you want to have meat, you need a three-dimensional structure. So, you need to increase the number of cells that can grow over on the other. But you do not have vessels there. And one of the aims of the industry is to increase to let the cells grow in the more three-dimensional way, to mimic the structure of the meat. And that's quite challenging. It's challenging in terms of yields especially. I think that's one of the reasons why these types of products have not yet been that successful. But there's a lot of technology ongoing, and I think we should not underestimate innovation when there is also sufficient funding to support that.

Ed (09:26:12)

So, we have talked a little bit about what it is, the process and some of the reasons behind it, some of the challenges. What about the safety of the product? You said we haven't received an application yet, but what are some of the things that we will look at in terms of the safety of an application for this?

Wolfgang (09:46:15)

Indeed, we have not yet received such an application, but we have started thinking, discussing, and we also have organised events such as this scientific colloquium in May in Brussels this year, and we are going to organise stakeholder meetings on the topic as well, also to exchange with stakeholders, with scientists from universities, but also with the industry part to get more knowledge about these types of products. We are quite confident that we are already prepared for that, and we expect that the hazards related to these types of foods are not dissimilar to what we are facing now with conventional food products. What are the hazards? The hazards are chemical and microbiological hazards. So basically, everything that you feed into your farmed animals, that includes also contamination from the feed, pesticides, food additives, sometimes antibiotics, contamination from the environment, industry, from emissions, everything that is fed to animals that they consume, that they are exposed to in the environment could end up on our plates. There are a lot of regulations to limit all of these contaminations and chemical hazards, and the same applies to microbiological hazards. We know all of these salmonella, campylobacter, other microbes that can affect meat and other foods and basically face the same challenges with regards to the cell culture-derived foods. So, everything you put into the medium where the cells grow and you need to put a lot of products in there, basically nutrients, vitamins, but also somewhere you need to make the cells grow. So, some growth factors are probably needed. Also, these ingredients you put in there are never 100% pure. We expect them to be pure enough to ensure safe food products. But these are the items we will look at when we are assessing such type of products. So, it's the chemical hazards we will look at, potential residuals in the final product, as well as microbiological contamination. And third is in our assessment, we look also to the nutritional composition of these types of foods. We are obliged to do so because the novel food regulation says that novel food should not be disadvantaged to the European consumer with regards to its nutrients. These products should not be worse let's say than what we are consuming already right now.

Ed (12:23:14)

And how do you think it would compare actually to a traditional meat product?

Wolfgang (12:28:02)

We expect that there will be some differences, but not necessarily that these differences are disadvantageous for the European consumers. So, I would expect that this hurdle will be passed by the industry, by these types of products. They will be somewhat similar in terms of composition because also the cells grow, and they need to see what the cells need in an organism. So, they need all the micronutrients, vitamins will be there, proteins will be there sufficiently - same quality with some differences, but not necessarily that the quality will be less than the protein. So, when you talk about conventional meat.

Ed (13:04:08)

The fact that it's a closed system, I guess is an advantage in one way because you can really control the environment to a very specific degree. But it could also be a disadvantage, a risk in that if anything does get into the system that perhaps shouldn't be there, a contaminant or whatever, it affects the entire system, is that right?

Wolfgang (13:22:06)

Absolutely correct. So I think when you have a contamination in the cell culture, you would very quickly realise it because the cells… there's no immune system. So there will be nothing in the cell culture that would fight against a microbial contamination. So this batch will be very quickly spoiled and you can discharge it. And it's a bit different to when you talk about farmed animals where you could have infections that are for a long time not observed. And once you spot them, it could have passed already. Quite the worst example you know is the BSE crisis, where it took years to even realise what's going on there. Yeah, and when people have already consumed these types of products. I think that will be different in terms of the cell culture where you quickly will see when there is microbiological contamination and basically, it's spoiled within one day. It would not reach consumers.

Ed (14:16:13)

Another question that springs to my mind is when we look at some of the critics who talk about these products, they use words such as… they call it artificial meat or synthetic meat. Do you think that's an accurate reflection actually of the process here?

Wolfgang (14:34:02)

I mean, these are not terms we are using in our scientific discussions. That's rather subject to people outside of EFSA. Personally, I think when we talk about synthesis, we rather think about chemical synthesis and these products are not chemically synthesised. So as a scientist, I would disagree with the term synthetic. When it comes to artificial versus natural meat, I also have a different view because what is natural food production? That would be for me as I would define it, I go to the forest and collect my mushrooms, my berries, and maybe I need even to get a fish from the sea or hunt my own animal. That would be the natural way of my food production. I wouldn't call the conventional industrial farming and agriculture as natural versus the artificial cell culture production. So, for me, it's both. Both are in a kind artificial because they are not any more collected and produced as we did maybe a thousand years ago.

Ed (15:33:24)

Mm hmm. Yeah. I guess in a way, a lot will depend on the choices of consumers when presumably these products do make it to market. What's going to be the cost, what's going to be the attitude of consumers, the taste, etc. All these factors come into play when consumers make their decisions. On that front, how do you see it for the industry in terms of the cost of production?

Wolfgang (15:56:13)

I have less insight on this aspect, so we are more in the science and to prepare for the safety assessment as such and less investigating and following the cost side. I think there's also a big challenge there for the industry to have large scale production that could compete with the price of meat, of conventional meat at this moment. There is a certain development ongoing - of course the more funding, the larger the scale of production could be and the cheaper the prices. But when and whether there could be real competition in terms of price with the conventional meat, I seriously don't know. It's difficult, I think.

Ed (16:38:04)

Yeah, as you said, it's out of our remit in any case. And another thing that we hear from applicants sometimes is they talk about the challenge of getting a product to market in terms of the EU system, the rules in place, etc. and they talk of a bureaucratic burden. What do you say to that?

Wolfgang (16:55:20)

Indeed, they need to make a submission and application, which then needs to be assessed by EFSA. And even after the EFSA assessment, there is a procedure of I think it's seven months for the European Commission and Member States to authorise this type of foods. So, it could take some time to get an authorisation. The reason is because European states have decided to ensure a high level of consumer safety. And that takes a process, that takes a while for the risk assessment. And even after the risk assessment, the Member States and European Commission could take other considerations into account as well. This process takes time. And the reason is, I think overall, because the EU has probably the highest standard in terms of food safety, probably on a global scale even.

Ed (17:45:00)

Okay. So could be a bit of time before I can go to a supermarket and choose some cell-derived meat if I wanted to.

Wolfgang (17:53:05)

Yes, certainly. The reason is not because we want to stop these types of foods, this innovation. EFSA is not in that position, and we would not have this intention at all. And I think also the European Commission does not have this intention. The reason is really consumer safety.

Ed (18:06:12)

Okay. Yeah. One final question to you on a personal level, Wolfgang. How did you end up here? What was your path towards becoming part of EFSA’s Novel Foods Team and assessing, you know, these kinds of novel products?

Wolfgang (18:20:13)

By studying, I'm a veterinarian, so I'm quite familiar with animal production, animal health, animal welfare issues. But then, I also have some years of experience in research, also using a lot of cells in biotechnology. I was working for a few years in assessing safety and efficacy of medicines, including biotechnology products and as such I also learned about certain guideline documents from the European Medicines Agency with regards to cell culture and biotechnology-derived products. And since 2003, I started at EFSA, in the beginning with BSE, with the BSE issue, and later on I moved to the Nutrition Unit and quickly I got the novel foods on my plate, which I have been doing now since 2006.

Ed (19:10:20)