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Meat, dairy and sugar grown in a lab could be on sale in the UK for human consumption for the first time within two years, sooner than expected.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is looking at how it can speed up the approval process for lab-grown foods.
Such products are grown from cells in small chemical plants.
UK firms have led the way in the field scientifically but feel they have been held back by the current regulations.
Dog food made from meat that was grown in factory vats went on sale in the UK for the first time last month.
In 2020, Singapore became the first country to authorise the sale of cell-cultivated meat for human consumption, followed by the United States three years later and Israel last year.
However, Italy and the US states of Alabama and Florida have instituted bans.
The FSA is to develop new regulations by working with experts from high-tech food firms and academic researchers.
It says it aims to complete the full safety assessment of two lab-grown foods within the two-year process it is starting.
But critics say that having the firms involved in drawing up the new rules represents a conflict of interest.
The initiative is in response to concerns by UK firms that they are losing ground to competition overseas, where approvals processes take half the time.
Prof Robin May, the FSA’s chief scientist, told BBC News that there would be no compromise on consumer
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