Mince no words: establishing “working” terminology for cell-based food
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), organized an online meeting entitled “Food safety and cell-based food: why terminology matters?” on 6 October 2022, as a pre-session to the upcoming expert on cell-based food that will take place in Singapore on 1-4 November 2022.
Dr Mark Sturme from Wageningen Food Safety Research, Wageningen University and Research, the Netherlands, presented the paper entitled “Food safety aspects of cell-based food - Background document one: Terminologies” which he authored together with Dr Gijs Kleter from the same institution. Also, Dr William Hallman from Rutgers University, United States of America, presented his work specifically conducted on nomenclature issues of cell-based fish products. Studies have concluded that while some different preferences exist among different sectors, the term “cell-based food” was found to be less confusing, conveniently over-arching and generally well-accepted by consumers.
However, there is no term that is 100 percent scientifically correct, according to the group meeting online. In theory, any organism made of cells can be described as “cell-based”, therefore, it does not automatically distinguish the technology to grow edible tissues from cells. Also, the term “cell-based” has never been used for food, so some food business operators may prefer not to use the term. The terms “cultured” and “cultivated” can be confusing as they are often used in the aquaculture sector to indicate farmed fish and fisheries products. The term “cellular agriculture” can be considered too general as it may include the topic of plant cell culturing or fermentation, which can use a wide variety of methodologies and techniques.
The online meeting led to an agreement among FAO, WHO and the Technical Panel members to use the term “cell-based” for the purpose of the expert consultation only.
“Nomenclature can have a significant impact on consumer perception, marketing efforts and relevant regulatory actions such as labelling,” said Masami Takeuchi, Food Safety Officer of FAO. “We will use the term cell-based food for this meeting, but the experts have suggested to have good studies before considering international harmonization of the terminology.” While it is ideal to have an internationally harmonized set of terminologies, experts have indicated that it may be more important to start with recommending a set of key elements for the food safety competent authorities to consider and use within their cultural and geographical contexts as well as their languages. Also the experts suggested not to use a direct translation of the English terms.
The expert meeting using the term “cell-based food” will also refer to two other background papers entitled “Food safety aspects of cell-based food – Background document two: Generic production process” and “Food safety aspects of cell-based food – Background document three: Regulatory frameworks”.
For more information:
- FAO. 2022. Food safety aspects of cell-based food – Background document one: Terminologies. Rome.
- FAO. Food safety and quality. Scientific Advice - Cell-based food
- FAO. 2022. Thinking about the future of food safety. Rome. (Section 4.5 is on cell-based food products)