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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

FDA

Traditional Meat Producers Lobby Trump Over Cultured Meat

About a decade ago, “disruption” was the big buzzword. Though it was (way) overused, there were some examples of startups that truly disrupted the status quo and changed entire industries. Think: Uber and taxis, or AirBnB and hotels. And now, from what it looks like, traditional meat producers in the U.S. are seeing the writing on the wall when it comes to lab-grown meat — and are taking steps to stave off their own disruption.

Agricultural professional groups including the American Sheep Industry Association, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Chicken Council, National Pork Producers Council and the National Turkey Federation fired off a letter to President Trump today, asking for parity when it comes to the regulation of cultured meat. From that letter:

“At a recent public meeting held by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which excluded USDA and at which FDA indicated it plans to assert itself as the primary regulator of cell-cultured products, a representative of a cell-cultured protein company stated, ‘Our beef is beef, our chicken is chicken.’ If that is so, then cell-cultured protein products that purport to be meat or poultry should be subject to the same comprehensive inspection system that governs other amenable meat and poultry products to ensure they are wholesome and safe for consumption, and to ensure they are labeled and marketed in a manner that provides a level playing field in the marketplace.”

This letter follows a petition from the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association in February of this year asking the USDA: To Exclude Product Not Derived Directly from Animals Raised and Slaughtered from the Definition of “Beef” and “Meat.” Basically, the argument is that the only thing you can call “beef” (and other specific meat types) is that which was born, raised and killed.

There’s a lot to unpack here. First, there is the issue of which regulatory body should oversee and set up rules around cultured meat. Traditional meat producers want it to be the USDA. But the USDA typically provides oversight of meat at the point of slaughter, and the point of lab-grown meat is to bypass animal slaughter altogether.

As Quartz points out, falling under USDA regulation would put cultured meat companies at a political disadvantage next to traditional meat producers, who have built up more clout with the agency.

For its part, The Good Food Institute (GFI), a non-profit that supports plant-based meat and dairy alternatives, responded publicly today advocating for FDA involvement, writing:

“The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has demonstrated the expertise necessary to provide adequate oversight of clean meat. Additionally, it is clear that FDA will have authority over most or all varieties of clean meat fish. Given that the methods of production will be the same, splitting oversight of the same process between two agencies would be duplicative and costly. So it makes sense that FDA would regulate clean beef, chicken, and pork as well.”

Ultimately, however, GFI said it would work with whichever agency was chosen.

In the press release announcing its letter to the president, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association used very Trump-ian language, calling lab-grown meat “fake meat,” and referring to the FDA’s recent moves as a “power grab.”

But all the sturm and drang from traditional meat producers feels a bit like an argument with a significant other over how they load the dishwasher. At some point, it’s not about how you place the bowls in the upper rack, it’s about something else — something deeper that’s been brewing inside.

Today’s letter to Trump comes at a time when the United States is sitting on 2.5 billion pounds of excess meat chilling in cold storage as a result of retaliatory tariffs from other U.S. meat importing countries, and at a time when the government is preparing to give $12 billion in aid to farmers impacted by the administration’s trade war.

Traditional meat producers have to deal with all of this today, and they have to worry about what can be grown in a petri dish tomorrow. That’s a tough spot to be in, but I can’t tell how many of these protestations are genuine and how many are just out of self-preserving fear. We should have a discussion about how we label the food we ingest! But if a startup can grow a steak in a lab without having to spend time, money and natural resources on raising an animal, we shouldn’t stymie that progress over picayune details.

Some traditional meat companies are investing these disruptive startups. Tyson Ventures, of the Tyson chicken company invested in Future Meat and Memphis Meats. Memphis Meats is also funded by agriculture giant, Cargill.

So is the smarter play to be a friend or foe to this meat disruption? Hopefully we won’t have to wait a decade to find out.

Stephen Colbert Mocks FDA’s Crackdown on Plant-Based Milks

Last night on The Late Show host Stephen Colbert turned his biting wit towards a subject that’s been generating a lot of media buzz lately: the question of what to call dairy alternatives. He was referencing last week’s Politico Pro Summit, in which FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced that his agency would start cracking down on the use of the term “milk” for non-dairy products.

Now I love Colbert as much as the next person (read: a lot), so I was thrilled to see him bringing attention to a worth issue. Especially one that’s so clearly begging to be made fun of. While Colbert doesn’t take an outward stance on the naming issue per se, he does do what he does best: rip it to shreds with sarcasm.

“If it ain’t from a mammal, you can’t call it milk; it has to be ‘soy juice’ and ‘almond sweat,” he quipped. He also latched onto the oft-quoted phrase from Gottlieb: “an almond doesn’t lactate.” It was almost too easy to make fun of.

Towards the end of the segment, Colbert addressed dairy farmers — a group whose perspective has been relatively ignored in the hullabaloo of mocking lactating nuts. He pointed out that if the FDA decides that alternative milks can’t be called “milk,” it will be a boon for dairy farmers, who have been struggling recently with milk surpluses and consequent low prices.

We also have to question whether things like soy milk and hemp milk actually care if they’re called “milk” or not. After all, their whole appeal is that they’re not milk. At the same time, we’ve grown so used to asking for oat “milk” with our lattés that it seems almost too late to change the nomenclature here.

Also, it seems pretty pointless. In a statement released this morning, Gottlieb returned to the idea that we need to explore the implications of calling non-dairy products “milk.” He wrote:

Because these dairy alternative products are often popularly referred to as ‘‘milk,’’ we intend to look at whether parents may erroneously assume that plant-based beverages’ nutritional contents are similar to those of cow’s milk, despite the fact that some of these products contain only a fraction of the protein or other nutrients found in cow’s milk.

He also pointed out potential consequences to labeling non-dairy products “milk,” stating:

“…feeding rice-based beverages to young children resulted in a disease called kwashiorkor, a form of severe protein malnutrition. There has also been a case report of a toddler being diagnosed with rickets, a disease caused by vitamin D deficiency, after parents used a soy-based alternative to cow’s milk.”

I am extremely skeptical that any parent — or anyone at all — is accidentally purchasing alternative milks. (So is the Good Food Institute, who recently conducted a pilot study on just this issue.)

Also, while rice-based beverages might indeed result in kawshiorkor (AKA protein malnutrition) in certain rare cases, milk isn’t all sunshine and rainbows either; many cows are fed hormones to continually produce milk, which humans ingest when they pour it over their cereal or into their coffee. Milk also contains quite a bit of saturated fat, and some people are lactose intolerant and can’t have milk to begin with. Plus — as Chris Albrecht pointed out on his post reacting to Gottlieb’s comments last month — the dictionary definition of “milk” actually includes plant-based options.

The question of naming is far more applicable in the case of products of cellular agriculture, like the cow-free dairy made by Perfect Day. Though it didn’t come from an animal, their “milk” is made with the same proteins as the real thing — and apparently tastes and acts the same, too.

When we spoke to Perfect Day co-founder Perumal Gandhi a few months ago, he actually told us that they want to call their product something other than “milk.” “We’re trying to come up with a nomenclature to show the consumer that this is produced in a new way, without animals,” he said. “If we call it milk then we’re not being transparent.”

This makes sense for an emerging alterna-milk, especially one so mollecularly similar to true milk, but it seems pretty ridiculous to completely change the terminology for existing plant-based products. Apparently, Colbert agrees — we’ll see if the FDA eventually does, too.

Watch the full episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert here.

 

Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods Get Label Wins, Score Big for Plant-based Meat

Yesterday plant-based burger startup Impossible Foods officially got the green light from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that their patties are safe to eat. Impossible voluntarily submitted their burger to the FDA for testing last year and was surprised when the regulatory body came back to them with a big red flag concerning the burger’s not-so-secret star ingredient: heme.

Though heme is typically found in animal tissue, it also occurs naturally in plants — albeit in smaller amounts. Impossible uses genetically modified yeast to produce large amounts of the stuff, which lends the trademark “bleeding” appearance, and meaty taste, to their burgers.

While the FDA was initially wary of approving heme, stating that there wasn’t enough information to establish its safety, it reversed its stance yesterday, claiming that the ingredient is “generally recognized as safe.”

Though it has cleared the FDA hurdle, Impossible Foods still gets flack for using genetically modified ingredients. Plant-based meat competitor Beyond Meat, however, made headlines today when it officially secured its status as non-GMO after a one-year review. Though many people, including Beyond Meat investor Bill Gates, believe that GMOs are “perfectly healthy,” the International Food Information Council Foundation revealed last month that nearly half of consumers avoid genetically modified food, believing it to be unhealthy.

These pieces of news are big wins for the respective alterna-meat startups. Business has been booming lately for both companies: Impossible recently started selling its vegan burger patties at White Castle and on select Air New Zealand flights, and Beyond has been selling out in grocery stores around the country, with plans for international expansion.

Got Milk? Are You Sure? Labeling Debate Moves on to Plant-Based Drinks

It looks like the debate over what we label cultured/lab grown/clean “meat” will not be isolated to the deli case. If the comments made by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb today are any indication, there will be another drawn out battle over what we label as “milk.”

Speaking at the Politico Pro Summit today, Gottlieb said that his agency would start more strictly enforcing rules over what can be marketed as “milk.” This could potentially be bad news for companies behind plant-based milks such as soy and almond, etc..

Just last week the FDA held a public meeting on what to label lab grown meat, spurred on in part by complaints from the US Cattleman’s Association which believe only products derived from animals born and raised should be labeled “beef.” The public meeting was a move by the FDA to get ahead of the debate as lab-grown meat is not available commercially yet.

Gottlieb’s comments today reflect just how far behind the curve the FDA is when talking about or enforcing regulations regarding “milk,” as plant-based varietals are pretty well entrenched in supermarkets right now. In fact, non-dairy milk sales have shot up 61 percent since 2012, and new “milk” varietals keep popping up: cashew milk, quinoa milk and even something like Perfect Day is on the way, which makes true milk from yeast.

Much like the cattlemen, dairy farmers are none too happy with these upstarts getting labeled as milk. Last week, 37 state farm bureaus and other agricultural associations sent the FDA a letter rebuking the agency for not enforcing its guidelines when it comes to labeling milk. Among the complaints was that “Plant-based beverages are not held to the same ‘Standards of Identity’ and yet they share in the benefits of using the term ‘milk’ on their packaging.”

Standards of Identity is a key phrase here, and one that Gottlieb mentions in his talk. It’s the rules set out by the government to define what a product is (how many tomatoes need to be in a product to make it “ketchup,” etc.) Gottlieb mentions that in the FDA’s standard of identity for milk, the regulations say it needs to come from a lactating animal. “An almond doesn’t lactate,” he said jokingly.

Gottleib said that up until now, the FDA had not been enforcing its own standard of identity, but will start doing so. But before he can do that, he has to go through some bureaucratic hoops like notification and public comment. This process, Gottlieb said, will probably take a year and he concedes will most likely result in his agency getting sued by those behind plant-based milk, which could extend the process even further.

Though he made the almond lactation quip, Gottlieb seems to understand that the fight over milk is going to be a tough one. He points out that while the FDA has a definition of what milk is, so does the actual dictionary, which Webster’s defines as:

  1. a : a fluid secreted by the mammary glands of females for the nourishment of their young
    b (1) : milk from an animal and especially a cow used as food by people
    (2) : a food product produced from seeds or fruit that resembles and is used similarly to cow’s milk, coconut milk, soy milk
  2. : a liquid resembling milk in appearance: such as
    a : the latex of a plant
    b : the contents of an unripe kernel of grain

You can watch all of Gottlieb’s comments on milk in a queued up video here.

Milk, it seems, will be yet another area of our complicated modern lives that will become controversial and force us to pick sides (I’m Team plant-based MILK all the way!). And it surely won’t end there. As science creates new methods of recreating existing foods (meat, fish, milk, yogurt, ice cream…), established players will fight to hold on to their dominance and do what they can to thwart disruption.

What do you think? Are you pro soy milk, or would you prefer a soy-derived non-dairy beverage?

FDA to Hold Public Meeting on Cultured Meat

There has been a lot of activity and investment in the lab-grown meat, or “cultured” meat space in the past year. Enough so that it has attracted the attention of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which announced today that it will be holding a public meeting about cultured meat technology next month.

For the uninitiated, cultured meat is animal tissue grown in a lab setting. It’s typically made through the use of starter cells from the animal, which are then developed in some kind of medium (often fetal bovine serum) in a bioreactor, then scaffolded to provide shape or texture.

Ethical and environmental issues with raising animals for slaughter and consumption have driven much of the competition and advancement in the cultured meat space, with Memphis Meats, SuperMeat, Future Meat, Aleph Farms and JUST among the leaders of this new type of food.

While it was once ridiculously expensive to grow meat in a lab, the large number of players and technological developments in the space are bringing that price down, and it seems that the FDA wants to be fully prepared before cultured meat makes it to the grocery aisle.

A meeting entitled “Foods Produced Using Animal Cell Culture Technology” will be held on July 12 in College Park, Maryland. From the FDA’s site:

The public meeting will give interested parties and the public an opportunity to comment on these emerging food technologies. Specifically, the agency is asking for input, relevant data and information on the following questions:

  • What considerations specific to animal cell culture technology would be appropriate to include in evaluation of food produced by this method of manufacture?
  • What kinds of variations in manufacturing methods would be relevant to safety for foods produced by animal cell culture technology?
  • What kinds of substances would be used in the manufacture of foods produced using animal cell culture technology and what considerations would be appropriate in evaluating the safety of these uses?
  • Are the potential hazards associated with production of foods using animal cell culture technology different from those associated with traditional food production/processing?
  • Is there a need for unique control measures to address potential hazards associated with production of foods using animal cell culture technology?

In a statement, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., and FDA Deputy Commissioner Anna Abram said that they want to “help foster dialogue regarding these emerging food technologies.” It went on to assert the USDA’s jurisdiction over cultured meat because, well, cultured meat is food, after all.

In reaction to the FDA’s announcement today, The Good Food Institute, which helps promote the work being done on clean meat, released a statement of its own saying “We are heartened to see that FDA is engaged in thinking through how clean meat can come to market under the existing regulatory framework. We are also encouraged that the FDA commissioner has acknowledged the benefits of clean meat, including animal welfare and environmental impacts. The United States has a robust food regulatory regime that is more than capable of ensuring that clean meat is safe and truthfully labeled.”

Speaking of labels, the FDA said this meeting will also include what we should actually label lab-grown meat. Cultured meat has raised the hackles of traditional meat producers who do not want the waters of what we consume muddied. Earlier this year, the United States Cattlemen’s Association filed a petition with the USDA asking for beef labeling requirements. The Cattlemen were specifically asking that “…any product labeled as “beef” come from cattle that have been born, raised, and harvested in the traditional manner, rather than coming from alternative sources such as a synthetic product from plant, insects, or other non-animal components and any product grown in labs from animal cells.”

If our recent “Future of Meat” meetup in Seattle is any indication, the public meeting next month promises to be a rousing event, and more importantly, the start of a broader discussion around alternative meats. If you’re going, be sure to drop us a line and tell us how it went.