Project Aim

This project aims to develop a structured framework to streamline regulatory review of media components, known as the Safety Assessed Media Ingredient (SAMI) List. The SAMI list includes commonly used media ingredients for cultured meat and seafood, such as vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and growth factors.

Overview

The intended outcome is a safety assessment, independent of regulatory considerations and harmonized across regions, as a first-level screening to reduce the level of effort for companies and regulatory reviewers. The SAMI list also aims to help companies screen products for residue levels of these ingredients in media formulations without having to undergo a new assessment and approval process.

Phase 1 of this project, completed in 2025, evaluated 56 commonly used ingredients in cultivated meat culture media (out of more than 150 candidates identified in industry surveys). The categorization scheme and conservative safe-use levels proposed for each component were evaluated during two well-attended workshops (in the Netherlands and Singapore) and the work was successfully published in Trends in Food Science & Technology (Ong et al. 2025).

Phase 2, currently ongoing, focuses on expanding the list of SAMI substances to include several of the additional 100 identified during the Phase 1 surveys, as well as a larger industry survey of more than 25 companies. Phase 2 explores ingredients that are more challenging to evaluate, including several with little or no history as food ingredients. Part of the challenge is the safety evaluation of mixtures such as hydrolysates, as well as novel manufacturing approaches for some ingredients. 

Stakeholders

This project is a collaborative effort between Vireo Advisors, Good Food Institute APAC, and Singapore FRESH at Nanyang Technological University.

Funding for the project has been provided NTU and GFI APAC.