GOUR­MEY, the French pion­eer in cul­tured premi­um foods, is seek­ing approv­al for cul­tured meat in five key markets

Par­is-based Gour­mey, France’s pion­eer­ing cul­tiv­ated food com­pany, announces it has filed applic­a­tions with the United States Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA), the Singa­pore Food Agency (SFA), the Food Stand­ards Agency (FSA) in the United King­dom, the Swiss Fed­er­al Food Safety and Veter­in­ary Office (FSVO), and the European Com­mis­sion (EC) and European Food Safety Author­ity (EFSA) to offer its flag­ship product to food enthu­si­asts, chefs, and res­taur­ants, provid­ing a new choice for foie gras enthu­si­asts globally. 

Con­sumer safety — at the heart of the request for authorization

Reg­u­lat­ors world­wide have estab­lished robust reg­u­lat­ory frame­works to assess the safety of nov­el foods such as cul­tiv­ated foods, with the US, Singa­pore and Israel hav­ing already approved their sale. In the EU, this is the first time a com­pany seeks nov­el food approv­al for cul­tiv­ated food from the European Com­mis­sion. Gour­mey does not use gene-edited or genet­ic­ally-mod­i­fied cells, so their applic­a­tion falls in scope of the nov­el food reg­u­la­tion. To sup­port their nov­el food applic­a­tion, Gour­mey has pre­pared a dossier in accord­ance with the rel­ev­ant reg­u­la­tions and EFSA guid­ance, which is widely con­sidered to rep­res­ent the gold stand­ard in nov­el food safety and risk assessment.

“We look for­ward to con­tinu­ing to work closely with the reg­u­lat­ory author­it­ies to ensure full com­pli­ance with safety require­ments through­out these pro­ced­ures. We are con­fid­ent that our products will meet these highly demand­ing stand­ards, so that every­one who wants to can enjoy new gour­met exper­i­ences all around the world”, said Gourmey’s CEO Nic­olas Morin-Forest.

The premi­um seg­ment drives glob­al food trends

“The premi­um seg­ment has always been at the fore­front of food trends, where the most excit­ing innov­a­tions occur. We are wit­ness­ing thrill­ing com­mer­cial trac­tion for our first product in many regions where chefs want to keep serving high-qual­ity foie gras. Start­ing with haute-cuisine acts as a cata­lyst for our future product launches, with chefs serving as the best ambas­sad­ors to intro­duce new product cat­egor­ies to con­sumers and drive sus­tain­ab­il­ity”, adds Nic­olas Morin-Forest.

Gour­mey is backed by a glob­al net­work of part­ners to facil­it­ate the company’s mar­ket entry, includ­ing fine food dis­trib­ut­ors, chef ambas­sad­ors, and sup­ply chain and research partners.

This innov­a­tion comes at a decis­ive time when con­sumers are increas­ingly seek­ing new ways to enjoy deli­cious culin­ary exper­i­ences while embra­cing sus­tain­able expectations.

With Gourmey’s glob­al ambi­tions and meat con­sump­tion in Asia pro­jec­ted to rise by 80% by 2050, the com­pany is act­ively engaged in these regions, par­tic­u­larly in mar­kets like Singa­pore, Japan, and South Korea where there is sig­ni­fic­ant momentum around cul­tiv­ated foods.

Products with a pos­it­ive impact

A study com­mis­sioned by Gour­mey, anti­cip­at­ing at-scale pro­duc­tion, shows that the company’s innov­at­ive tech­no­logy sig­ni­fic­antly lowers the envir­on­ment­al foot­print com­pared to con­ven­tion­al pro­duc­tion in the same product cat­egory. In par­tic­u­lar, green­house gas emis­sions, land and water use would be reduced.
The study is con­duc­ted under the extern­al sci­entif­ic lead­er­ship of Pro­fess­or Hanna Tuom­isto from the Uni­ver­sity of Hel­sinki and the Nat­ur­al Resources Insti­tute Fin­land, a lead­ing European schol­ar and pion­eer in the field of life cycle assess­ments of nov­el foods, includ­ing cul­tiv­ated food.

“Diver­si­fy­ing pro­tein pro­duc­tion is cru­cial for sus­tain­ing food secur­ity and con­trib­ut­ing to sus­tain­ab­il­ity object­ives such as decar­bon­iz­a­tion and biod­iversity. Integ­rat­ing cul­tiv­ated food pro­duc­tion into exist­ing agri­food value chains provides a com­ple­ment­ary pro­tein source that will con­trib­ute to resi­li­ent food sys­tems”, says Nic­olas Morin-Forest.

“‍This import­ant mile­stone for our eco­sys­tem was achieved thanks to fab­ulous team­work. Now a new chapter for Gour­mey begins — the chapter of bring­ing French food innov­a­tion to the glob­al stage”, adds Nic­olas Morin-Forest.

About Gour­mey

Foun­ded in 2019, Gour­mey cre­ates sus­tain­able gour­met products dir­ectly from non-GMO anim­al cells by com­bin­ing food innov­a­tion with culin­ary arts. The com­pany now com­prises a 60-strong inter­na­tion­al team at its food innov­a­tion cen­ter in Par­is, France. Since its incep­tion, Gour­mey has secured over €65 mil­lion in pub­lic and private invest­ments and is cur­rently pre­par­ing for mar­ket entry, pending reg­u­lat­ory approvals. Gour­mey focuses on provid­ing new and deli­cious culin­ary exper­i­ences, with its flag­ship product set to offer a new choice for foie gras afi­cion­ados, chefs, and res­taur­ants globally.

About cul­tiv­ated foods

Cul­tiv­ated foods and pro­teins are based on cell cul­ture tech­no­lo­gies that have been used to pro­duce food for dec­ades, for example, for grow­ing yeasts for bread bak­ing or for the pro­duc­tion of ren­net in cheese. Begin­ning with a small sample of anim­al cells and nur­tur­ing them in a nutri­ent-rich growth medi­um, the cells grow into muscle, fat or oth­er tis­sues. The growth medi­um con­tains the same ingredi­ents, e.g., sug­ars, pro­teins, vit­am­ins, min­er­als that are required in anim­al nutri­tion. In Gourmey’s cul­tiv­a­tion pro­cess, no anim­al-derived com­pon­ents, such as fetal bovine ser­um, are used, ensur­ing that the final product is free of these ele­ments. Fur­ther­more, anti­bi­ot­ics are not used dur­ing pro­duc­tion and are not present in the final product.