‘A quail by another name still isn’t beef’: Cattle Australia criticises lab-grown food labelling laws

Australia’s peak cattle producer body has fired off at the latest proposed regulations for lab-grown food, arguing the labelling requirements put forward will “mislead” consumers who may not know they are not buying real meat. In January, Food Standards Australia New Zealand wrapped up its second round of public consultation on the case of cell-cultured quail. The public consultations are in response to Sydney-based company Vow Food’s application to FSANZ seeking regulatory approval for cultured quail cells to be used as a novel food ingredient in food products in Australia. Instead of approving cultured quail cells as a novel food, FSANZ has proposed a standards-based approach — meaning it will allow the sale of Vow’s product and any cell-culture food that passes a pre-market assessment. As part of the assessment, FSANZ has recommended labelling cultivated goods as either ‘cell-cultured’ or ‘cell-cultivated’. However, Cattle Australia CEO Chris Parker said this system does not “adequately describe” to consumers what they are buying, and argued minimum labelling standards for plant-based or lab-grown foods should prohibit any reference to animal food products. “We strongly believe that the use of livestock images on plant or synthetic protein packaging or marketing materials should also be outlawed as it is a deliberate deception of consumers designed to dupe them into believing they are eating something that they are not,” he said. “The use of the word beef and images of cattle on fake foods has been proven to be confusing to consumers and actually weakens the value of the real thing.” Dr Parker also referenced the 2022 Senate Rural and Regional Affairs Committee enquiry, which made recommendations for a mandatory food labelling laws to avoid confusion between real and plant-based meats. He said the proposed FSANZ framework for cultivated goods went against these recommendations. Dr Parker also took aim at the safety of lab-grown proteins, saying there were “no reassurances” that the products are safe for human consumption. FSANZ, after a “comprehensive” scientific assessment, concluded there were no safety concerns with using cell-cultured quail as a food. In 2020, Singapore became the first country in the world to approve cultivated meat products, followed by the United States in 2023. Currently, Australia and New Zealand have four companies involved with cultivated meats, however, lab-grown food has not been approved for consumption in either country.