The Edible Insects UK and EU boo-boo

The “Edible Insects as Novel Food” saga, began in the European Parliament in 2015. This led to the categorization of edible insects as Novel food, and subsequently, to the 5 year oligopoly of a few large companies over the entire sector. This was achieved through the exploitation of data protection provisions within the regulation.

Anyone reading through the EP/EU commission Meeting and Briefing notes will see mentions of “food industry representatives” and “the food industry” – in other words the lobbyists, who managed to create a legislative framework which would only favour a few.

Sadly, over the past 2 years the press and media have been misreporting the grim reality of the situation, misunderstanding what has really been going on.

How did it all start?

Back in 2015, there was a growing appetite in Europe for edible insects, and an even bigger appetite for the prospect of large profits, to be made by establishing mega-farms and industrialising production. This was a great opportunity for the greedy capitalists to stick their money hungry claws into an emerging green sector. The inherent environmental benefits of edible insect farming, like reduced greenhouse gas emissions, better feed conversion rate etc., were readily available selling points and ‘sustainability’ was a marketing buzz-word ready to be exploited. It was therefore easy to distract the general public from other issues, like the extensive destruction of natural habitats, needed to build enormous insect farms and the creation of the insect equivalent to ‘battery chickens’.

Notes from the EU Commission legislative train on novel food

Some interesting abstracts from the European Parliament and EU Commission notes (with reference to Novel food authorisations – 2015) are an eye opener:

“A centralised authorisation process will be put in place, according to which applications for authorisation will be submitted to the European Commission, and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) will carry out risk assessments. Authorisations will be generic, so that each company does not have to introduce its own application for the same novel food.”

revised after pressure [input?] from the lobbies:

“Under current rules, authorisation is granted to the applicant (individual authorisation). The Commission proposes to change this to a generic authorisation, to avoid repeated new application submissions by several companies for the same novel food. This is expected to benefit small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular. The food industry stresses, however, that adequate data protection provisions are needed to maintain incentives for companies to continue investment in research and product development. The proposed regulation thus allows that, by way of derogation, individual authorisations with data protection may be granted for a maximum period of five years.“

With the 5 years rule in place, the SMEs were doomed. The 5 years rule applies when the request for authorization contains one or more elements which can be ‘data protected’ (Article26 of Regulation (EU) 2015/2283). Data protection, hence exclusivity, is being obtained, for example, by including in the application a study or assay which has not been published before (“newly developed scientific evidence or scientific data”).

Through this mechanism, capital venture backed companies, which can afford the cost of such studies, have been making their authorizations exclusive to them. The fact that ultimately it is the same ‘humble’ dried mealworm or cricket being ‘authorised’, does not change the fact that each company, to be able to trade, has to submit its own scientific evidence (estimated cost 80k to 1million, depending on the application) and wait years for approval.

Bad for innovation

We are being treated to this big lie that Novel Food regulations, applied to edible insects, is good for innovation. This could not be further from the truth. Any new product will need to be developed first, then authorised, which makes no sense at all. Take for example the meat analogue that Horizon was planning to develop. We would have had to invest in expensive machinery, develop prototypes, commission the scientific data for a Novel Food dossier, submit the dossier to the FSA, then wait a couple of years, hoping the product would be approved. Great for R&D, isn’t is ?

The idea that treating edible insects as Novel Food will somehow encourage innovation is completely flawed. This is because the product, all its intended use, the percentage of insect protein within a product, plus the production processes of the ‘novel food’ are to be scrutinised individually. In other words, mealworms dried in a conventional oven, need to be evaluated separately from freeze dried mealworms, or microwave dried, or convection dried and so on. Furthermore, slight variations in the composition of the finished product can potentially result in the need for a new Novel Food application.

What about the UK ?

In the UK, Post Brexit, Trading Standards institutions like Bromley’s, Liverpool’s and many others, recognised the impact on SMEs of applicant-based Novel Food authorisations (where each company has to introduce its own separate application). “The evidence you submit should be specific to your product; therefore gathering together publicly available information will not be sufficient. Any business seeking approval for a novel food will probably need to conduct independent scientific research (which will be beyond the technical / financial means of some small and medium-sized businesses). Making an application is free; however, the process of gathering and submitting the evidence is expensive and takes a long time to complete“

So they knew they were screwing the SMEs and they did it anyway. The above indicates that the extensive literature on the safety of cricket, mealworms and locusts, all of which is in the public domain, and widely available in the European Food Safety Authority Journals (see below), cannot be used to demonstrate safety. Furthermore, since the companies that have been approved by the EFSA, have all so far used the above mentioned data protection provisions, other companies wanting to sell approved insects, will have to either submit a similar application or enter into “commercial agreements” with these.

For example : see mealworms (applicant SAS EAP Group Agronutris). https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.2903/j.efsa.2021.6343

see mealworms (applicant Fair Insects BV (A Protix Company)) https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2903/j.efsa.2021.6778

The above took on average 2.5 years for the European Food Safety Authority to approve. In full knowledge of this,  in the UK the FSA and FSS, instead of using Brexit as an opportunity to disentangle the UK from the lobby driven system of Europe, either “fell” for the exact same thing, or are deliberately protecting large corporate interests against those of SMEs (which make up 100% of the edible insects UK sector).

What does the future hold ?

The list of companies which have applied for authorization to the UK FSA has not been made public, although it is not difficult to guess which names will be on that list. An upcoming FOI request, will hopefully soon reveal to what extent foreign companies have been given competitive advantage over UK SMEs and if there are other large players that are waiting for the edible insect space be cleared of SMEs, in order for them to monopolise it.

The UK edible insect industry has seen businesses destroyed, efforts to raise capital hindered and R&D halted. Not only the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland have perpetuated the fallacy of the EU, they also declared that from the 1st January 2021 (end of the Brexit transition period), edible insects could no longer be legally sold in the UK. During the past 15 months, while the FSA and FSS have been “reflecting” (see blog) , in the eyes of the law, anyone selling edible insects in GB stands liable to a hefty fine or a jail sentence. Not to mention, that illegal food products cannot be insured for liability.

In a similar fashion to what happened in Belgium, where a group of SMEs were forced to pool resources and submitted authorisation requests through the Belgian Insect Industry Federation (BiiF – they applied on 28th September 2018 and are still waiting for approval), last December, some UK operators resorted to doing the same. However, with such an uncertain timeline, with the FSA resources comparatively inferior to those of the EFSA, and the anticipated risk of prosecution for breaking food law by ignoring the ban, it will be impossible for the SMEs to survive.

Our [now defunct] vision

At Horizon we shared a YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) vision, which we felt was in tune with emerging trends of community city farming and the long standing British tradition of allotment farming. Over the past 2.5 years we had been using vegetable surplus from London local shops, to transform it into healthy insect protein (see Horizon on the BBC “Climate Change What can We Do”. For our vision, Horizon got sponsorship from the Greater London Authority Better Futures program and also European Union funded Vouchers allocated to the UK pre-Brexit (which we have had to forfeit due to the current lack of legality). Our vision, our project and taxpayers money have gone to pot, through no fault of our own.

Conclusion

We said it before, other countries like Australia and New Zealand, through the excellent work of their Food Standards agency FSANZ, having carried our their own assessment, concluded that mealworms, crickets and morio worms are safe to eat. This is of course, provided that good manufacturing and rearing practices, as established for other animal products, are being adhered to, in accordance with existing laws and regulation and food law.

Last week Uganda also produced guidelines on edible insects intended at safeguarding both consumers without the Novel Food nonsense. Canada is another example.

Instead of focussing resources on establishing rearing standards, animal welfare, microbiological criteria, last January the FSA to add insult to injury, spent public funds to commission a study on public perception of edible insects.

What a brilliant way for the UK to “take back control”

Comments welcome.

 edible insects UK