BioCraft Receives Registration to Sell Cell-Cultured Pet Food Ingredients in Europe
March 25, 2025 - 4 min read
Third-party validation confirms cell-cultured pet food ingredients are pathogen-free and non-GMO
VIENNA, Austria – March 25, 2025 – BioCraft Pet Nutrition, the first biotech company to develop animal cell-cultured ingredients for the pet food market, announced today it has received registration from the Austrian authorities to use Category 3 Animal Byproducts (ABP) in the European Union, enabling it to begin selling ingredients to EU pet food producers.
Austrian authorities granted BioCraft the registration “for the purpose of multiplying cells for the production of pet food.” There is currently no pre-market approval process in the EU for animal feed ingredients—alternative, novel or otherwise. Companies wishing to sell animal-based ingredients to pet food manufacturers must meet legal requirements to ensure that the feed ingredients are safe and become a registered user of animal byproducts in the EU. BioCraft has now met their obligation as a Feed Business Operator and notified the EU Feed Material Register.
Achieving this legal status requires both registration by authorities and a demonstration of the ingredient’s safety and quality vis-à-vis a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) plan (Regulation 183/2005). A team of veterinary, food safety and food science experts, both in-house and third party, generated safety data following dossier requirements for an EU Feed Additive (Regulation (EC) No 1831/2003)—the highest standard for any material going into pet food—to demonstrate the safety and quality of BioCraft’s product.
Studies to complete the comprehensive plan, performed over a three-year period, confirmed that BioCraft’s ingredients are produced using stable, non-immortalized, non-genetically modified animal cells; free of bacterial pathogens, viruses including retroviruses, mycotoxins, moulds, and yeasts; and free of biogenic amines (natural compounds produced by living cells that can have negative health effects when present at high concentrations) and heavy metals. Additional third-party profiling of over 100 nutrients revealed a highly similar nutritional profile between BioCraft’s animal-cell cultured ingredient and standard “meat slurry” currently used by pet food manufacturers. In particular, results demonstrated comparable levels of key nutrients, such as taurine, lysine, methionine and tryptophan, but showed a superior omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of BioCraft’s ingredient to that of conventional “chicken slurry.”
“Achieving ABP registration for an animal cell-based ingredient in the EU is a significant milestone for BioCraft and the industry as a whole,” said BioCraft founder and CEO Dr. Shannon Falconer. “This comprehensive safety analysis goes well beyond regulatory compliance and provides a meticulous breakdown of our feed safety protocols, including stringent supplier verification processes, traceability documentation, risk assessments, and SOPs for every critical control point. We’ve implemented rigorous quality control measures and transparency across our supply chain, and the result is the highest industry standards for safety and integrity in alternative protein production.”
“Pet food producers are following this market space eagerly because there is a need for more ingredients that are supply-chain stable, sustainable, scalable, safe, and ethical,” said Patricia Heydtmann, Quality and Product Development Director at Partner in Pet Food, one of Europe’s leading pet food manufacturers, which is investigating options together with BioCraft. “BioCraft’s HACCP plan detailing safety and nutritional quality are an additional assurance that its ingredients are ready to be developed into healthy products that our cats and dogs will enjoy.”
BioCraft produces an unstructured ingredient from culture-grown animal cells that does not require additional downstream processing. With a nutritional profile and consistency that is similar to the meat slurry pet food producers already use, BioCraft’s ingredient can be used as a one-to-one replacement in wet or dry foods at similar inclusion levels to traditional slurry. BioCraft’s first cultured cell-based ingredient is made with mouse cells—the ancestral small prey diet of both cats and dogs. While it may not be the first choice for a human, feline and canine taste testers alike find it irresistible.
Pet food manufacturers interested in samples of BioCraft’s ingredients can contact the company via https://www.biocraftpet.com/about.
About BioCraft
BioCraft Pet Nutrition, founded in 2016, was the first biotech company to create cultured animal cell-based ingredients for pet food that don’t come at the expense of slaughtering other animals. BioCraft was also the first to create a proprietary growth medium as an alternative to fetal bovine serum (FBS), helping reduce production costs by well over an order of magnitude and representing a key step towards commercial scale. Today, the BioCraft team includes a roster of PhD scientists, a veterinarian, and senior business advisors, all focused on taking animals out of the supply chain by producing the healthiest, most environmentally sustainable and supply-chain stable ingredients for dogs and cats. BioCraft is located in North America and Europe, with R&D performed via its subsidiary company, BioCraft Pet Nutrition GmbH in Austria. BioCraft investors include Draper Associates, SOSV, KEEN Growth Capital, Orkla Food Ingredients, Sentient Investment, Hack Capital, Tilia Impact Ventures and angel investors. BioCraft Pet Nutrition GmbH is a recipient of grant funding from the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG). For more information visit https://biocraftpet.com.
