The food industry should stop lobbying for its own interests and instead support increased funding for regulatory bodies to speed up the process.
The slow pace of progress has led to innovation problems and shifted the focus from business needs to requirements.
It can be difficult to break into the plant-based industry and other emerging industries. [develop products] Ira Van Elen, co-founder of Respectfarms at Future Food Tech in London, said: "I'm afraid of moving towards what's allowed rather than what's optimal. I think regulators should know that."
What can you do to speed up the food approval process?
Ben Price, RSSL's head of business development, said that in addition to this, there is a need to improve alignment between different regions or create a central resource that can create pathways to define "and provide data to all regions on what the laws cover."
Ida Sondergaard, head of global regulatory affairs at Solar Foods, said compliance with the regulations is not easy.
There is a huge amount of money in the [regulatory] world. “There is a difference between the markets,” she said. The EU framework is easy to use, but it takes years for the product to reach the market.
She said the involvement of authorities is essential to speed things up. Singapore's food and beverage regulators ensured all parties attended the same meeting, which helped secure approval.
Joshua Ravenhill, head of policy priorities at the UK Food Standards Agency, said that despite the resource issue, understanding the space and the speed at which it is changing was the biggest obstacle.
"It's [the alternative-protein market] that the FSA is going to have a huge impact on. It's not our job to inform consumers about what culture is," he said. "We don't think we should change the EU framework for novel foods. Instead, we need to understand how best to increase safety, not change the legislation."
Food regulators to receive more funding
Van Elen said this could only be achieved if everyone in the industry understood the goals and bought into them.
"Why aren't people in the industry pushing for more resources for regulators so things can move faster? We're forced to do things faster. Food safety is important, but there's also the burning issue of [fast] platform [of new tech] shortages," she replied.
Ravenhill said it would be beneficial to push for more funding for regulators, not just faster approval.
This will enable the integration of data from different departments to demonstrate how new foods will be aligned with [the overall goal]. Industry can help us get the information and data on why regulators need more funding.
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