After insect flour, now it’s the turn of synthetic meat, fines of up to 60 thousand euros: here is the new battle of Lollobrigida

The agenda of the Council of Ministers, scheduled for the afternoon, also provides for a bill “containing provisions on the matter of prohibition of the production and placing on the market of synthetic food and feed”. “This law lays down provisions on the prohibition of the production and placing on the market of synthetic foods”, reads the explanatory report of the provision. A battle carried on by Coldiretti.

The measure starts from Francesco Lollobrigida, a member of Fratelli d’Italia, who, after the obligation to label flours that originate from insects, will today bring a bill to the CDM to block the production and trade in Italy of foods and synthetic feed, such as meat: that is, built from animal cells in the laboratory. In America and in various EU countries, research is well under way, in Italy it risks getting stuck.

A ban on the production and marketing of synthetic foods is established, the ban “includes both food intended for human consumption and feed intended for animal consumption”. Operators who violate the provisions will be subject to a pecuniary administrative sanction “from a minimum of 10,000 euros up to a maximum of 60,000 euros or up to 10 percent of the total annual turnover achieved in the last financial year ended prior to the ascertainment of the violation, when this amount exceeds 60,000 euros, in addition to the confiscation of the illicit product».

The government, in particular, imposes a stop on synthetic meat. «Among the synthetic foods, the one on which research and production has focused the most is meat which is the result of a cell cultivation process carried out in the laboratory on animal stem cells», the premise of the bill. In some non-European countries – the draft of the provision underlines – “studies aimed at the production of such foods for commercial purposes” are at an advanced stage, and in the United States the go-ahead has arrived “for the first chicken meat produced in a laboratory, i.e. a meat that is produced by developing animal cells in the laboratory».

«The status of the research and experimentation of synthetic foods seems – it is remarked – to be at an embryonic stage, such that one is not in the conditions, above all scientific, to be able to exclude that such artificially produced foods do not have negative consequences for the human health”.

It is by no means “verified what effect the consumption of synthetic foods could generate” on human health, the draft of the bill underlines. Furthermore, “with reference to the sustainability of products of an artificial nature, there is no scientific evidence that demonstrates potential advantages for the environment”. Indeed, “scientists and researchers are also warning of the risks that such industrial production could cause to agricultural systems”.

Among other things, cultured meats «may require the use of antibiotics to ensure sterile growth environments. Antibiotic residues can persist in products and contribute to the spread of antibiotic-resistant pathogens. In the course of processing, “other dangerous materials” are then used. It should be emphasized that – it continues – “in the course of an experiment, the intake of ultra-processed foods was associated with a higher risk of overall cardiovascular disease”. For all these reasons “it was therefore decided to intervene as a precaution at a national level to protect interests that are linked to health and cultural heritage”. In addition to the sanctions, a stop is imposed “on contributions, loans or subsidies or other disbursements of the same type, however denominated, granted or disbursed by the State, by other public bodies or by the European Union for the performance of business activities” and provides for “the closure of the production plant for a minimum period of one year and up to three years”.

The competent authorities for the controls will be “the Ministry of Health, the Regions, the local health authorities, the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Health, through the territorially competent Anti-adulteration Nuclei, the Forestry, Environmental and Agri-food Unit Command”.