The Italian government has been widely criticised for approving the bill. This has brought up questions as to whether this will have any effects in South Africa.
Mathilde Alexandre, ProVeg Cell-Ag Project Coordinator, labelled the move by the Italian government as a draconian measure that ignores the economic and environmental potential that cultivated meat holds.
"Cultivated meat is an important new technology that can positively affect the food system in reducing carbon emissions, pollution, and supporting animal welfare and biodiversity, while being a real lever for economic growth," said Alexandre.
According to the bill, it will be forbidden in the country to produce food or feed from cell cultures or tissues derived from vertebrate animals, and if one breaks this law, they could be fined up to 60,000 euros ( R1 166 469,00).
Francesco Lollobrigida, the Italian minister for agriculture and food sovereignty, said the aim of the bill was to "protect our culture and our traditions, including food and wine".
He added, "Laboratory products, in our opinion, do not guarantee quality, well-being, or the protection of our culture, our traditions."
When asked if this will have any effects in South Africa or if lab-grown food poses any threats to the country’s traditional agriculture industry, Donovan Will, Country Director of ProVeg South Africa, said the market for these products is still quite small in the country.
"As things currently stand, it is unlikely that these products will be a threat to traditional agriculture in South Africa because they have not yet reached price parity. Whether they will be seen as a threat in the future will be determined by the price and quality of these products," said Will.
He said if new technologies are able to create products that are more sustainable, more ethical, and better for our health at a lower price, we will naturally want to switch to those products.
"For cultivated meat and other cellular agriculture products, we are able to more closely control the inputs, so we can control how much saturated fat is in the product.
“We can also fortify the products with the minerals and vitamins that are needed. We can control the protein content. But an important point is that there will be no antibiotics added, which are usually added in industrial agriculture," said Will.
In South Africa, traditional meat plays a very important part at the dinner table. However, Will said South Africans have been eating soy-based mince for years.
"So we know that when the price is right and it tastes good, people will buy it. For both plant-based and cellular-agriculture, the Creedence Institute did a study on a sample size of South African consumers' perceptions of plant-based and cultivated meat in South Africa, finding that about 2 out of 3 consumers are highly interested in trying these new sources of proteins," said Will.
Will acknowledged that one of the barriers to these products is price; however, he said the price of these products is actually decreasing as more people start using them.
"As more people buy them, the landscape will become more competitive and the prices should decrease. At the same time, the price of meat is increasing drastically."
Brett Thompson, co-founder and ECO of Mzansi Meat said that the production of cultivated meat goes beyond just producing protein but has positive effects on the environment and that the conversation about the ban of lab-grown proteins might not make any impact in South Africa.
“ Our types of new food and development processes of foods might not align with that of Italian heritage, so it's quite an interesting line of discussion where you haven't seen in other parts of the world, whether it's for or against agriculture. I think from the perspective here of South Africa, we've been speaking to the government since day one, and I think we have been met predominantly with curiosity and excitement about the potential of new technologies and how do we feed more people and how do we get more protein onto places in South Africa and the rest of the continent,” said Thompson.