Lab-grown pet food authorised to be sold in UK
Meatly has worked with vegan pet food company Omni to create a lab-grown cat food.
Pet food containing lab-grown meat is set to go on sell in the UK for the first time.
Cultivated meat company Meatly has received permission from regulatory bodies to sells its canned wet food for cats that uses cultivated chicken as a protein source.
It is the first European company to be authorised to sell cultivated meat, and the first company in the world to be authorised to sell cultivated meat for pet food in the UK.
The product has been created in collaboration with Omni, a protein pet food company based in the UK. Omni was founded by veterinary surgeon Guy Sandelowsky to produce vegan pet food.
Non-traditional diets for pets are becoming increasingly common among pet owners, but there have been concerns about their possible impact on animal welfare.
The British Veterinary Association has recently published a policy paper looking at the topic of dietary choices for cats and dogs. The paper states that alternative protein ingredients such as cultured meat have been suggested to improve the sustainability of food, but that ‘more research is needed to assess their safety, nutritional qualities and whether they can truly be considered sustainable.’
To authorise the sale of its cultivated chicken in the UK, Meatly worked with the Food Standards Agency, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Animal and Plant Health Agency.
The company also produced a safety dossier and conducted testing to show that the cultivated chicken was safe for pets. It says that tests found the cultivated chicken was free from bacteria and viruses, grown from safe nutrients, and that it was safe for pets and nutritious.
Meatly is aiming to launch the first samples of its lab-grown pet food later this year and hopes to start scaling production to industrial volumes in the next three years.
Owen Ensor, chief executive of Meatly, said: “We’re delighted to have worked proactively alongside the UK’s regulators to showcase that Meatly chicken is safe and healthy for pets.”
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Veterinary practices are being urged to help owners safely dispose of any unused and expired pet medicines - not just antibiotics - during November's Animal Medicines Amnesty. 
