The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has “no questions at this time” about a company’s lab-grown salmon.
The company, Wildtype, announced that it has “completed a thorough pre-market safety consultation with FDA.” The product is available in one restaurant in Portland, Oregon.
In a letter to the company, the FDA’s Director Office of Food Chemical Safety, Dietary Supplements, and Innovation Human Foods Program Director, Mark Hartman, wrote that the company’s safety assessment of the “cultured salmon cell material” has led the FDA to conclude that “foods comprised of or containing the cultured cellular material resulting from the production process defined in CCC 000005 are as safe as comparable foods produced by other methods and would not contain substances that adulterate the food.”
Based on the information Wildtype has presented to FDA, as well as other information available to the agency, we did not identify a basis for concluding that the production process as described in CCC 000005 would be expected to result in food that bears or contains any substance or microorganism that would adulterate the food,” the letter says. “We have no questions at this time regarding Wildtype’s conclusion that foods comprised of or containing cultured salmon cell material resulting from the production process defined in CCC 000005 are as safe as comparable foods produced by other methods.”
The FDA noted that it is Wildtype’s responsibility to “ensure that foods it markets are safe, wholesome, and in compliance with all applicable legal and regulatory requirements.”
Several states have banned lab-grown meats, including Montana, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama.
