How a livestock industry lobbying campaign is turning Europe against lab-grown meat
By Zach Boren – Unearthed: This month the UK became the first country in Europe to approve the sale of meat grown in a laboratory, giving the green light to a pet food made of cell-cultivated chicken.
Lab-grown meat is presented as a potential solution to the environmental impacts of livestock farming. Cultivated meat products are showing up on shelves and in restaurants in a small but growing number of countries: Singapore, Israel, the US, and now Britain.
Last week French start-up Gourmey filed the industry’s first application for market access in the EU. It wants to sell cell-based foie gras, the traditional dish that has faced criticism over animal welfare concerns.
But in Europe it faces an increasingly hostile political climate, with lab-grown meat encountering stiff resistance from a coalition of countries fighting for fresh restrictions at an EU-level and introducing bans within their own borders.
The backlash is being driven by an influential lobbying campaign fronted by a former beef industry executive and funded by livestock interests, a joint investigation by Unearthed and Dutch website Follow The Money has found.
That campaign, which grew out of the successful effort to have lab-grown meat banned in Italy, has capitalised on the farming community’s anger over rising costs and green targets, and made major inroads with EU leaders.
Some have accused the project of fighting “imaginary enemies”, but policy victories suggest it is succeeding in undermining a food product that, in Europe, does not yet exist.
And the campaign continues to gain momentum: the government of Hungary, whichrecently assumed the six-month presidency of the European council, is pushing to tighten the authorisation rules in the EU and planning to ban lab-grown products nationally.
Now, with Hungary driving the EU council agenda and a new class of right-wing European parliamentarians elected partly on a pro-farmer ticket, experts expect the campaign to ramp up.
“The groups lobbying for more meat and against alternative proteins will feel emboldened,” Pieter De Pous, policy analyst at environmental think tank E3G, told Unearthed.
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“It means these efforts to stop cultivated meat aren’t likely to stop,” he added. “But, as it often is in the EU, the picture is actually more complicated. Meat alternatives are as much, if not more so, driven by consumer preferences, markets and technological progress than by policies.”
Don’t have a cow
Lab-grown meat, also known as cellular or cultivated meat, is created by taking stem cells from livestock and developing them in bioreactors, forming substances that replicate the taste and texture of traditional meat.
The first lab-grown meat product – a burger – was unveiled in August 2013 by Dr Mark Post, a professor at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and co-founder of Mosa Meats.Food critics who tasted the £200,000 patty were mostly impressed, with one describing it as “close to meat, but not that juicy” and another praising its mouthfeel, even if it wasn’t fatty enough. Post was satisfied: “It’s a very good start”.
After that proof-of-concept burger, investment in the technology poured in. Some of the world’s largest food conglomerates have become involved, including Cargill and Tyson Foods.
But it remains a niche product available in only a few markets.
The hype around cultivated meat products has grown alongside rising awareness of the environmental impacts of livestock farming, which is responsible for between 11% and 19% of global greenhouse gas emissions and uses more than a third of the world’s habitable land.
Lab-grown meat has been described by the IPCC, the world’s leading climate body, as an emerging technology that could help substantially reduce emissions. Though it has “lower land, water, and nutrient footprints, and [can] address concerns over animal welfare,” the panel said in a recent assessment, some of the emerging technologies use a lot of power, so “access to low-carbon energy is needed to realise the full [climate] mitigation potential”.
This energy intensity has led to widely reported criticisms. If you Google lab-grown meat and climate, most of the top results argue it is a false solution to climate change. The most frequently cited study, from the University of California Davis, estimates the life-cycle emissions of lab-grown meat could be up to 25 times greater than traditional meat products. That study did not pass peer review last year — though the author Derrick Risner told Unearthed it has been altered and resubmitted.
Risner, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Davis, insists that cell-based meat is “not as environmentally friendly as the industry says it is”.
His research, however, is disputed. “They modelled using [pharmaceutical]-level processes, that’s why energy use was so high,” said Hanna Tuomisto, professor of food systems at the University of Helsinki. “That’s not needed for the feedstock ingredients in cultivated meat, they just need to be food-grade”.
She added: “There are many uncertainties because we don’t have large-scale production that has been fully optimised, [but] most research suggests that there is potential for cultivated meat to have lower environmental impacts when compared to some meat production, such as beef.”
In recent years, as lab-grown meat has drawn closer to market, a backlash has been building in Europe, incubated in the proud food culture of Italy
When in Rome
Today’s pushback against cultivated meat originated with Coldiretti, Italy’s most powerful agricultural association, which claims to represent over 1.6 million farmers and businesses across the country’s food sector. In November 2021, the group launched an attack on ‘frankenstein meat’ over its claimed health, environmental and animal welfare benefits.
Within a year the newly elected Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni had joined the movement, signing Coldiretti’s petition against cultivated meat, which was also being supported by Brussels think-tank Farm Europe.
Meloni, who leads the right-wing populist party Fratelli D’Italia, has made championing Italian culture – including its food – a central part of her electoral offering. Ministers in her government have described lab-grown meat as a threat to Italian culture, and in November 2023, Italy became the first country in the world to ban cultivated meats entirely.
By then, Coldiretti was already looking beyond its borders, running a session at a New York food exhibition “to compare strategies” and “share how it is preventing the spread of synthetic food through national legislation”. Earlier this year Florida and Alabama bannedthe sale of lab-grown meat, and there are similar proposals in other states. There is no suggestion that Coldiretti was directly involved in lobbying for those bans.
The next step, Coldiretti’s president Ettore Prandini announced in December 2023, was to push for a Europe-wide ban on cultivated meats. “Today the game moves to Europe,” he said. “Surely it will be a complex, difficult game, but fortunately Italy has led the way.”
Coldiretti was supported by the Meloni government, whose agriculture minister Francesco Lollobrigida – advised by a former Coldiretti staffer ––began crafting a joint statement opposing cultivated meat with his Austrian and French counterparts. It was released at an EU council meeting of agriculture ministers early this year at which the existing regulatory framework came under fire.
Meloni herself spoke out against lab-grown meat at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, warning of a dystopian world “where the rich can eat natural food and synthetic food is for the poor”.
Her party even put its opposition to cultivated meat into its manifesto ahead of the recent European Parliament elections, promising to “continue the battle against the production and marketing of synthetic meat”. Fratelli D’Italia increased its share of the vote.
Farm Europe
Coldiretti’s partner in the fight against lab-grown meat is Farm Europe, a think-tank founded in 2015 by former EU officials and advisers. The group is funded by agricultural associations and livestock groups – including Coldiretti, which joined in 2019.
In 2022 Farm Europe and Coldiretti launched Eat Europe, a project calling for a “climate transition fit for all categories of products, rooted [in] our farming systems rather than labs”.
Questioning lab-grown meat’s environmental credibility is central to their argument: Eat Europe documents say it “reduces biodiversity” and “pushes nature away from humans”.
The group has also opposed EU-level proposals to reduce farming’s environmental impact, including plans to regulate pollution from large livestock farms, cut pesticide use in half, and revive damaged ecosystems.
Leading Eat Europe is Luigi Scordamaglia. Prior to his appointment, Scordamaglia was the CEO of Inalca, Italy’s biggest beef producer, and the president of Assocarni, the country’s leading meat association. He works closely with Coldiretti, often joining its meetings with EU officials and national politicians.
Neither Coldiretti nor Scordamaglia provided a comment for publication when approached.
‘Not fit for purpose’
The Brussels campaign against cultivated meat made its first major intervention last spring, when a series of amendments critical of the products and the EU’s regulatory framework were tabled by MEPs linked to Farm Europe as part of a parliamentary report on the bloc’s protein strategy.
The amendments, some of which were accepted, argued that cell-based food “presents ethical, social, environmental and economic challenges” and Europe’s novel food regulations – which assess and authorise new and innovative food products – are “not fit for purpose”.
Among the MEPs raising these concerns was Dacian Ciolos, a Romanian MEP and former EU agriculture commissioner, whose former policy adviser went on to co-found Farm Europe.
Weeks later, Farm Europe argued that “the risks [of cellular meat] are clearly closer to the pharmaceutical world than food products”, and therefore the more stringent approvals process used for new drugs should be adopted, including “pre-clinical and clinical studies to be carried out prior to any marketing”. Coldiretti soon chimed in with similar arguments.
Alex Holst, senior policy manager at the Good Food Institute Europe, told Unearthed: “European food safety regulations are the most robust in the world, and it’s important that those standards are upheld when it comes to cultivated meat. Overhauling the gold standard Novel Foods regulatory process now is completely unnecessary, and risks preventing the EU from taking a leading role in this sector.”
Dacian Ciolos told Unearthed the amendments represented his own opinions. He said: “As a former agriculture minister and agriculture commissioner, I have a very good understanding of what high quality, natural food means, how important for health, local development and management of natural resources is. I have my own questions and doubts about cell-cultivated meat, its impact on markets, agri-food chains, farmers, and the social fabric of our rural areas, but also about its societal impact in general.”
In a statement to Unearthed, a representative for Farm Europe said: “On cellular issues, we assessed the available research of this disruptive technology and came to the conclusion that the production process is closer to pharmaceutical products than to conventional food.”
Farm Europe’s ideas were given fresh salience early this year, as long-simmering anger over fuel costs and green policies erupted into the farmers’ protests. Politicians, eager to satiate farmers’ fury, began unravelling environmental policies – the EU’s pesticide reduction goal was shelved and new biodiversity measures were delayed.
Lab-grown meat became a topic of heated debate at a January meeting of EU agricultural ministers. There, a memo raising concerns over its regulatory regime was circulated by the Italian, Austrian and French delegations and supported by a further ten member states.
The note describes lab-grown meat as a “threat to primary farm-based approaches and genuine food production methods” and questions whether existing regulations are the best means of gauging “potential risks associated with these products””. The note called for “a comprehensive impact assessment” and a public consultation.
The document’s criticism of cultivated meat’s environmental impacts references the UC Davis study.
The EU’s Novel Food Regulations offer a “high level of health protection”, a European Commission spokesperson told Unearthed.”
Chris Bryant, director of Bryant Research, which consults for the alternative protein sector, observed how effective this approach has been.
He told Unearthed: “It is entirely predictable that those with huge financial investments in the livestock industry would spend money on lobbying to protect their investments.
“If you had invested millions of Euros consolidating livestock production into ever larger factory farms which can undercut small farmers, and now you have a wave of farmers protesting about worse pay and working conditions in farming, you need to do something about that. In that circumstance, paying lobbyists a few thousand Euros to convince politicians that it’s because of scary lab-grown meat seems like pretty good value.”
The protests culminated in a large demonstration in Brussels on February 1, jointly organised by Coldiretti. During the protest, fires were started and a statue was toppled in front of the EU parliament. There is no suggestion that Coldiretti condoned or encouraged such acts. After the protests, Coldiretti representatives met with EU leaders, including EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen and agriculture commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski.
Coldiretti presented several demands to the EU leadership, including that they “say no to lab-grown food”, Scordamaglia told a Polish cattle industry conference the following day.
Soon afterwards, it was reported that, at Wojciechowski’s behest, lab-grown meat was removed from the EU’s 2040 climate strategy. The following week, he met Scordamaglia and Coldiretti again on the sidelines of Farm Europe’s biannual Global Food Forum, an important event in the EU’s agriculture calendar.
“Artificial food will be not promoted, not included into the European Union policy,” Wojciechowski told attendees of the Global Food Forum in a speech that evening, confirming a report that he had scrubbed lab-grown meat from the EU’s climate roadmap.
The shift, he added, represents “very important changes to our approach to the Green Deal.”
Beyond Brussels
The EU elections in June set the stage for a contentious parliament on the issue of lab-grown meat. “A fierce debate is emerging, with the German Greens and the Italians from Fratelli d’Italia at opposite ends of the spectrum,” Farm Europe has noted.
The debate is also erupting in capitals across the continent, as several countries move towards national bans.
Hungary, which has put lab-grown meat on the agenda for the country’s six-month stint as EU council president, is following Italy’s example and planning to ban cultivated meat products.” In January, Eat Europe’s president Scordamaglia and Coldiretti’s president Prandini met with the country’s agriculture minister to discuss restrictions on cellular meat, documents obtained by Hungarian watchdog Atlatszo show.
In Romania, where Ciolos was prime minister, a prospective ban has already passed the senate.
“Adopting the law was a message sent to the Romanian meat producers, to those who are part of the food industry who were raising certain concerns or were asking questions about the topic,” explained Adrian Chesnoiu, the country’s former agriculture minister and one of the law’s initiators.
The bill’s biggest champion in government, senator George Scarlat, is vice president of the Romanian pork lobby and the owner of a pork farm.
Scarlat said he is not paid for his role at the country’s pork association and there is no conflict of interest. His role is beneficial as it makes him an expert on the meat industry, he argued.
France, too, is debating a ban on lab-grown meat, and at the Hungarian presidency’s agricultural ministerial meeting on ‘preserving European food traditions” reportedly offered to organise a committee to determine public acceptance of cellular meat.
The protests of the past year have demonstrated the might of Europe’s farmers, and even after derailing the EU’s green agenda, the movement could make further gains in this new political landscape.
“There is a perfect storm of events that are undermining the agricultural components of the green deal,” Dr Jeroen Candel, professor of European Politics at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, said.
“Farm to fork [the EU’s flagship programme for environmentally friendly agriculture] has become a taboo, and there is less and less environmental leadership across all of the EU institutions.”
He added: “If you thought the EU had already rolled back on all its green measures, there’s still more policy wins the farming lobby could secure — including possible restrictions on alternative proteins like lab-grown meat.”
Additional reporting by Matei Bărbulescu, Andrei Petre, Orsolya Fülöp
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