The UK is now the first European country to green-light the sale of lab-grown meat, but with pets instead of human consumers as its first guinea pigs.
The UK’s Animal and Plant Health Agency and the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs granted London-based startup Meatly regulatory approval to produce lab-grown pet food, which described the clearance as a “huge leap forward for the cultivated meat industry.”
“Pet parents are crying out for a better way to feed their cats and dogs meat,” Meatly CEO Owen Ensor said in a statement, pitching that the company’s cultivated pet food would allow them to do so “in a way that is kinder to our planet and other animals.”
Meatly says it plans to launch commercial samples of its first…