The US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and the US Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a formal agreement on Tuesday to jointly oversee the production of human food products derived from the cells of livestock and poultry.

FSIS and FDA released a formal agreement to address the regulatory oversight of human food produced using this new technology. It described the oversight roles and responsibilities for both agencies and how the agencies will collaborate to regulate the development and entry of these products into commerce. This shared regulatory approach will ensure that cell-cultured products derived from the cell lines of livestock and poultry are produced safely and are accurately labelled.

“Consumers trust the USDA mark of inspection to ensure safe, wholesome and accurately-labelled products,” said Mindy Brashears, deputy under-secretary for food safety, USDA, adding, “We look forward to continued collaboration with FDA and our stakeholders to safely regulate these new products and ensure parity in labelling.”

“We recognise that our stakeholders want clarity on how we will move forward with a regulatory regime to ensure the safety and proper labelling of these cell-cultured human food products while continuing to encourage innovation,” said Frank Yiannas, deputy commissioner for food policy and response, FDA.

“Collaboration between USDA and FDA will allow us to draw upon the unique expertise of each agency in addressing the many important technical and regulatory considerations that can arise with the development of animal cell-cultured food products for human consumption,” he added.

Under the formal agreement, the agencies agree upon a joint regulatory framework wherin FDA oversees cell collection, cell banks and cell growth and differentiation. A transition from FDA to FSIS oversight will occur during the cell harvest stage. FSIS will oversee the production and labelling of human food products derived from the cells of livestock and poultry.

On October 23-24, 2018, FSIS and FDA held a joint public meeting to discuss the use of cell culture technology to develop products derived from livestock and poultry. The public meeting focussed on the potential hazards, oversight considerations and labelling of cell-cultured food products derived from livestock and poultry.