More than £320m invested to give the UK leadership in novel foods is being jeopardised by negotiations for dynamic alignment with the EU, as fears grow investors are starting to withdraw from the sector.
In April, The Grocer revealed that plans for the UK to become a centre for lab-grown meat and other new novel foods faced being dashed by the move to realign the UK with EU single market rules.
New evidence submitted to the House of Commons Business & Trade Committee by the Alternative Proteins Association (APA) warns that the UK is risking its “progressive” policies on developing lab-grown meat being taken over by an EU framework that is “slower, more politically contested, and increasingly hostile to the technologies”.
The body said that the FSA’s development of a Cell-Cultivated Products Sandbox programme, launched with a £1.6m grant from the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology in 2024, was in danger of losing any chance of having a major impact. The programme was due to approve world-leading new technologies just at the time that the power for authorising them looked set to be handed over to Europe, the APA added.
The Grocer revealed concerns in April that the sandbox could become a “regulatory white elephant” but pressure is now growing on the FSA and the UK government to do more to ensure the money has not been wasted.
The APA is urging the FSA and Defra to push for cell cultivated technology to be “waived out” of the SPS negotiation process so that the gains achieved in the UK since Brexit are not thrown away, warning that there are signs of investors already going cool on the sector because of the talks.
The future of the UK’s novel food authorisation programme is under a huge cloud as negotiations with the EU look set to see the FSA forced to hand over a huge swathe of its powers to Europe.
Last week The Grocer also revealed just a handful of the 12,000 CBD products under review by the FSA were likely to be approved before responsibility switches to the EU – throwing the future of the sector into doubt and leaving manufacturers in “limbo”.
In a submission to the committee’s call for evidence on UK trade with the EU, the APA said the UK risked handing over a “direct competitive advantage”. It warned there were already signs of investors turning away from the sector because of doubt over its future.
“The FSA’s CCP Sandbox, launched in March 2025, is widely regarded as the most progressive novel foods regulatory pathway in the world,” it said.
“The government’s target for SPS Agreement implementation is mid-2027.
“The FSA’s CCP regulatory sandbox programme is targeting completion of safety evaluations for cultivated meat by February 2027.
“These two timelines collide directly. If alignment takes effect at that point and novel foods are within scope without a carve-out, the sandbox programme loses its potential for major impact just as it reaches its key milestones, and several years of UK regulatory investment are reversed as a side-effect of an agreement designed to facilitate conventional food trade.”
The sandbox has been working with companies including Ivy Farm Technologies, Hoxton Farms, Roslin Technologies and Meatly, with the FSA having expressed hope the UK would become a “world leader” in lab-grown meat.
The APA adds: “Alternative proteins are a clear example of a sector where post-Brexit UK regulatory divergence has created direct UK competitive advantage.
“A permanent novel foods carve-out from dynamic alignment is therefore the highest priority … and explicit recognition in the reset framework that UK novel foods regulation is a strategic asset to be preserved rather than a candidate for alignment.”
The body claims that while the the UK has become a “regulatory safe harbour” for pioneering alternative protein brands, legislation in Europe is actively opposing the rollout of such technologies.
“The significance of this goes beyond protecting what the UK has already built,” it adds. “The EU is actively pushing innovative food companies away. Its Biotech Act excludes novel foods from sandbox provisions. Its labelling restrictions create market barriers. Its approval pathway has produced zero cultivated meat authorisations.
“The UK has built precisely the regulatory infrastructure these companies need, and has the opportunity to become a regulatory safe harbour, attracting innovators whom the EU framework is driving out.
“This is not speculative: the FSA’s CCP Sandbox already includes participants from the Netherlands, France, and Australia, alongside UK companies, drawn by the FSA’s more collaborative and proportionate approach.
“Dynamic alignment without exemptions would close that door.”
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