UK Clears Gene-Edited Non-Browning Banana as Precision-Bred
02 October 2026, Norwich: UK regulators have granted precision-bred status to a gene-edited banana designed to resist the browning that normally follows bruising or cutting, moving the fruit a step closer to British supermarket shelves. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) approved a marketing notice for the banana on September 29, confirming it qualifies under the UK’s Precision Breeding Act framework for crops edited using techniques that could, in principle, occur through conventional breeding. The banana, developed by Norwich-based Tropic Biosciences using CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, still needs a separate food safety review from the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) before it can legally be sold, a step no precision-bred food product has yet completed.
Editing Out the Browning Enzyme
Tropic’s scientists used CRISPR-Cas9, a gene-editing tool that works like precise molecular scissors to cut and alter specific DNA sequences, to change all three copies of a single gene in the banana’s genome that controls production of polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme responsible for the browning reaction that occurs when fruit tissue is cut or bruised and exposed to oxygen. Because cultivated bananas carry three copies of most genes rather than the usual two, Tropic needed to edit all three copies to meaningfully reduce the enzyme’s activity. Company chief executive Gilad Gershon said the edited fruit can resist browning for an additional one to two days at room temperature, and longer under refrigeration, compared with ordinary bananas.
Tropic is pitching the slower-browning trait primarily at food manufacturers rather than fruit sold loose, with potential uses in prepacked fruit salads, smoothie kits and breakfast products where browning currently limits shelf life and increases food waste. The UK approval adds to regulatory clearances Tropic has already secured in ten other countries, including Japan, Brazil and the Philippines, and the company says the edited bananas are already being grown commercially in Latin America.
The UK, however, has been slower to translate its post-Brexit Precision Breeding Act into actual market approvals. The law, which took effect in March 2023, allows crops and animals edited with techniques that introduce only changes a conventional breeder could in principle achieve to be regulated more like conventional varieties than like older-style genetically modified organisms, avoiding the lengthy case-by-case risk assessments GMOs face in the European Union. Even so, Defra’s marketing notice only confirms that a product qualifies as precision-bred; the separate FSA safety assessment is still required before sale, and the FSA has not yet completed that review for any precision-bred product since the law took effect more than two years ago. Tropic’s banana will be among the first test cases for how quickly that second step can move.
Tropic Biosciences is better known for a separate, earlier-stage gene-editing program aimed at protecting Cavendish bananas from Tropical Race 4, a soil-borne fungal strain of Panama disease that has devastated banana plantations across Asia, Africa and Latin America and has no effective chemical control once established. The company has said it aims to begin deploying TR4-resistant banana lines commercially around 2027, a separate effort from the non-browning trait covered by this UK approval, which addresses fruit quality rather than disease resistance.
Also Read: Dhanuka Agritech Launches Adjuvant Wetcit Neo and Rice Blast Fungicide Fujita for the Indian Market
Global Agriculture is an independent international media platform covering agri-business, policy, technology, and sustainability. For editorial collaborations, thought leadership, and strategic communications, write to pr@global-agriculture.com
