British dogs and cats are set to become the first animals in Europe to chow down on meat cultivated from chicken cells.
Britain has approved the sale of lab-grown meat for pet food, becoming the first European nation to give its blessing to a process that has prompted opposition in other countries.
The move, which became an opportunity for entrepreneurs after Britain’s split from the more-regulated European Union, is a victory for the biotech industry, which the British government hopes to build into a superpower.
The landmark approval went to Meatly, a British company that grows meat from chicken cells for pet food. Its product, which will begin feeding trials in August, arrives at a time when the worldwide market for pet food is expected to grow 5 percent this year to $151 billion, according to the research firm Statista.
And it is more sustainable and kinder to animals, said Owen Ensor, the chief executive of Meatly.
“It allows you to still feed the meat that your pets crave and that you want to feed your pet — while providing all the nutrients that your pet needs,” said Mr. Ensor, who added that he had fed the product to his cats, Lamu and Zanzi.
When it comes to lab-grown meat, Britain is ahead of countries in the European Union primarily because it is no longer beholden to the bloc’s tighter regulations and often slow-moving approval process for technological developments, advocates of alternative proteins said.
“Europe is cutting itself off from innovation,” said Linus Pardoe, the U.K. policy manager at the Good Food Institute Europe, which works to advance technological alternatives to animal proteins. “The U.K. has a much more straightforward system now that we’ve left the European Union.”