Novel
food
regulation

Novel food is defined by the Novel Food Regulation (EC) No 258/97 as foods or food ingredients which have not been used to a significant degree for human consumption in the EU before 15 May 1997, when the first regulation on novel food came into force. Currently, the commercialization of insects is governed by the Novel Foods Regulation (EU) No 2015/2283, which came into force on 1st of January 2018. Following the regulation, insect products must be authorized as Novel Food by European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and approved by European Commission (EC) before being legally put on the EU market for safe consumption as food products. Yellow mealworm (Tenebrio molitor) is the first insect species authorized in Europe as safe for human consumption.

Licensing
agreement
with Protix

To accelerate the authorization of our mealworm ingredients for food products, we have signed a Novel Food licensing agreement with insect industry pioneers Protix. This license covers frozen and dried formulations from yellow mealworm larvae.

Where do
we stand

The acquired licensing agreement from Protix allows us to produce and sell our products including whole insect powder and products that are made with whole insect powder - textured insect protein and textured insect protein powder for food applications. According to the statement of European Commission services (DG SANTE), the contractual Novel Food licensing agreement enables the business operator to market authorized products. A separate Novel food application is not required if the terms of the concluded commercial contract with the authorized applicant are followed.

Further steps

Our R&D team is preparing to submit additional Novel Food Dossiers to get Novel Food authorization for our other specialty ingredients.

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