Tasting Cultivated Meat in The Netherlands
Today it is being announced that cultivated meat and seafood can soon be taste tested under limited conditions in The Netherlands. The Dutch government, in collaboration with cultivated meat producers and sector representative HollandBIO, successfully created a ‘code of practice’ that would make tastings possible in controlled environments.
This historic agreement makes the Netherlands the first country in the European Union to make pre-approval tastings of food grown directly from animal cells possible, even before an EU novel food approval. It follows on the heels of the government’s ‘National Growth Fund’ committing €60M to build a robust cellular agriculture ecosystem to make the Netherlands a global hub for the burgeoning technology. The organization created to implement the National Growth Fund plan, Cellular Agriculture Netherlands, will have responsibility for implementing the code of practice, including hiring a panel of experts to evaluate requests by companies to conduct tastings of cultivated meat and seafood.
The code of practice was created after an intervention by the Dutch House of Representatives in 2022. A motion sponsored by members Tjeerd de Groot (D66) and Peter Valstar (VVD) requested that the government enter into consultations with Dutch cellular agriculture producers to enable pre-approval tastings under controlled and safe conditions. The motion was passed by 14 of 17 voting political parties, including VVD, BBB, CDA, D66, Christen Unie, PvdA, GroenLinks, PvdD, SP and more.
Maarten, our CEO said: “This is a great achievement for the Dutch government and another proof point that the Netherlands is a global leader in agriculture and food innovation. We thank all 123 members of the Tweede Kamer who voted in favor of finding a way to make this possible and Minister Kuipers, Minister Adema and their teams for being professional and collaborative in getting it done. Mosa Meat will use these controlled tastings to gather invaluable feedback on our products and to educate key stakeholders about the role cellular agriculture can play in helping Europe meet our food sovereignty and sustainability goals.”
Interested in tasting cultivated meat?
If you have a background in food evaluation or food product development, feel free to express your interest to join a tasting session here.
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