PRAGUE — Bene Meat Technologies (BMT) recently wrote an open letter to the European commission on cell-cultured meat bans in Italy.
In November 2023, the Italian Chamber of Deputies voted to pass a law banning the marketing and production of cell-cultured (cultivated) meat in the country. The ban also applies to food and feed and includes large fines for companies that work with cultured meat. The law was approved in December, and now a similar ban is reportedly on the way to France.
Founded in 2020, BMT aims to assist pet food manufacturers in their sustainability goals through its cultivated products. The company originally started with an aim for human food application, but soon saw a huge opportunity for the pet food space. BMT meat is made from cells that are not violently removed from a living animal, and then grown in laboratory bioreactors.
Recently, BMT registered its cultured meat in the European Feed Materials Register, allowing it to produce and sell its cultured meat products to the European pet food industry.
According to the letter, signed by Roman Kříž, managing director of BMT, cultivated meat products have many, scientific health, environmental and ethical benefits.
“We know that innovative measures can bring them an initial distrust of something new, however, such distrust should not result in modern society trying to ban change without an argument based on reality and scientific, which we are currently witnessing in the case of Italy,” wrote Kříž. “…Therefore, we consider the action adopted by the Italian Parliament as discriminatory and not supported by scientific knowledge, violating the principle of the common market, and goes beyond the common mechanisms for assessing food safety in the European Union, which is against the interests of the European Union.”
According to the letter, Italy’s ban also discriminates against consumers who prefer cultured food and feed and consume such products for their nutritional, ethical and environmental benefits. Additionally, such a ban that aims to protect meat producers against meat alternatives (such as plant-based ones) is against the principles of the common market and competition, according to the letter.
“Therefore, we would like to ask you, within the competences entrusted to you, to properly assess the law from Italy, as an EU member state, from the point of view of justification and compatibility in principle of the common market and, in general, its compliance with EU law,” concluded Kříž. “Our company is convinced that there are no significant reasons for the action of Italy, and is ready to provide cooperation in the assessment of professional questions related to the assessment of the safety of cultured products, both from the point of view of their consumption, and from the point of view of possible effects on the environment.”
Across the pond in the United States, cultured meat is generally allowed for use in human consumption. However, some states have begun to impose different regulations, from specific product labeling to all-out bans. For example, lawmakers in Arizona, Florida and Iowa have most recently introduced regulations on these products.
Read more global pet food and treatment news from outside North America.
