Lab-grown meat is not currently available in any U.S. grocery stores or restaurants. If some lawmakers have their way, it never will be. Alabama banned it this month. Earlier this month, both Florida and Arizona banned the sale of cultivated meat and seafood, which is grown from animal cells. In Iowa, the governor signed a bill prohibiting schools from buying lab-grown meat. Federal lawmakers are also looking to restrict it.
"Alabamians want to know what they are eating, and we have no idea what is in this stuff or how it will affect us," Republican state Senator Jack Williams, the sponsor of Alabama's bill, wrote in an email to The Associated Press. "Meat comes from livestock raised by hardworking farmers and ranchers, not from a petri dish grown by scientists."
Meat producers did back the bans in Florida and Alabama. The leaders of those states' cattlemen's associations – which are advocacy groups for ranchers – stood next to both governors as they signed the bans into law.
But the picture is more complicated at the national level, where the meat industry doesn't support bans on cultivated products. Some meat producers, like JBS Foods, are working on developing cultivated meat of their own.
"We do not support the route of banning these outright," Sigrid Johannes, the director of government affairs for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said. "We're not afraid of competing with these products in the marketplace."
The Meat Institute – which represents JBS, Tyson and other big meat companies – sent a letter to Alabama lawmakers warning them that the state's ban was likely unconstitutional since federal law regulates meat processing and interstate commerce.
The founders of Wildtype, a San Francisco-based company that makes cultivated salmon, traveled to Florida and Alabama to testify against the bills but weren't able to sway the outcome. They hope someone will challenge the bans in court but say it's not realistic for their tiny company to take on that battle.
It's unclear how far these efforts will go. Some cultivated meat companies say they're considering legal action, and some states – like Tennessee – shelved proposed bans after lawmakers argued they would restrict consumers' choices.
The U.S. approved the sale of lab-grown meat for the first time in June 2023, allowing two California startups, Good Meat and Upside Foods, to sell cultivated chicken. Two high-end U.S. restaurants briefly added the products to their menus. Some cultivated meat companies began expanding production. One of Good Meat's products went on sale at a grocery in Singapore.
