The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) have published a joint scientific review on novel food sources and production systems, such as edible insects, cell-based foods, plant-based proteins, and other products.

West Virginia passed a bill known as the Truth in Food Labeling Act, restricting the language that can be used on labels for cell-based meats, plant-based meat alternatives, and other “analogue products,” such as insect-based foods. The bill awaits the Governor’s signature.

The French government has issued a decree that would ban the use of “meaty” descriptor terms for plant-based meat alternative products produced in the country, with the aim of tackling misleading food labels.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a guidance for industry that describes how firms can voluntarily engage with FDA before marketing food from genome-edited plants.

Recent sampling and testing of ingredients used for plant-based dairy alternatives has revealed highly variable microbial loads among ingredients, although many samples contained a high proportion of spore-forming microbes as part of the total counts.

In Arizona, one recently introduced bill (House Bill 2244) aims to ban lab grown meat, and another (House Bill 2121) would prohibit labeling of meat alternatives and cell-based meat as “meat.”

A new study has found microplastics particles in 88 percent of protein food samples across 16 types, with no statistical difference in microplastics concentrations between land- and ocean-sourced proteins.

The European Parliament’s Committee on Fisheries recently held a public hearing to discuss the issue of labeling plant-based imitation fishery products, with some stakeholders likening current labeling practices to food fraud, and others arguing that labeling plant-based foods with words that evoke animal products is helpful to consumers.

The added microbial risks that come with eating more plant-based foods can usually be mitigated by adjusting recipes or process parameters, although hazard considerations regarding the chemical safety of a diet richer in plant-based materials is more complex. Also, introducing reusable packaging may come with its own set of issues.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has published a foresight technical report of the food safety considerations of three novel food sources and production systems: 3D food printing, plant-based foods, new applications of precision fermentation.