The EU BioTech act

Biotechnology is increasingly used in food and feed – from precision fermentation and enzyme production to new ingredients and processing aids – and the way these innovations are governed has a direct impact on food safety, nutritional quality, and consumer trust. An updated and coherent EU framework for biotech helps ensure that novel products are assessed efficiently and transparently, while maintaining high standards of safety, ethics, and sustainability along the entire food chain.

The European Commission has proposed the European Biotech Act, a new EU‑level framework to strengthen the Union’s biotechnology and biomanufacturing sectors, with a One Health approach that explicitly covers human, animal and plant health, including food and feed applications. The Act aims to simplify and accelerate regulatory procedures, promote innovation (especially for SMEs and start‑ups), improve access to scientific advice, and support the use of digital and data‑driven tools, all while preserving the EU’s high safety and ethical standards.

For food and feed, the proposal would amend the General Food Law to streamline EFSA’s risk assessment processes, broaden pre‑submission scientific advice (including study design and testing strategies), shorten certain procedural delays, and introduce the possibility of regulatory sandboxes where Member States can test innovative products and methodologies under controlled conditions. EFSA’s remit would be expanded beyond food and feed safety to explicitly cover nutrition, recognising the growing importance of diet‑related health issues and the nutritional properties of foods derived from advanced biotechnological processes.

The EU Food Safety Platform will closely follow and facilitate discussion on the Biotech Act as it moves through the legislative process, focusing on its implications for food and feed safety assessment, innovation pathways, and public confidence in biotech‑enabled food systems. This emerging framework has the potential to modernise EU food safety regulation for biotechnology while reinforcing science‑based protection of consumers and the environment.