Latest news with #UpsideFoods
The Hill
2 days ago
- Business
- The Hill
Lab-grown barbecue sales banned in Texas
AUSTIN (KXAN) — If someone wants to eat a meatball made of wooly mammoth and grown in a lab, they're going to have to do it outside of Texas. A new law passed this legislative session has made it illegal to sell 'cell culture protein for human consumption within' Texas. Senate Bill 261 will go into effect Sept. 1, 2025, and will expire in 2027. The law makes Texas the seventh state to ban the sale of lab-grown or cultured meat. Indiana passed a similar law in May. Nebraska, Montana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida also have bans in effect. 'As ranchers, we produce 19% of the world's beef with only 6% of the world's cattle,' said Carl Ray Polk, with the Texas Southwest Cattle Raisers Association, at a committee hearing on March 31, 'but some have decided a lab is better than a pasture.' 'The lab-grown meat sector will continue to face headwinds as consumers and lawmakers learn more about the lack of long-term health studies and use of 'immortalized cells,'' said Jack Hubbard, executive director of the Center for the Environment and Welfare (CEW), in a press release. CEW, a think tank, is one of the leading critics of lab-grown meat. The bill was authored by Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, and sponsored by Rep. Stan Gerdes, R-Texas, in the House. 'Texas prides itself on being open for business, and yet here we have a law that's shutting down a business,' said Katie Kam, CEO and founder of Bio B-Q. Her Austin-based company aims to make lab-grown brisket. 'Cultivated meat, in our view, is safer than the conventional meat that is produced in a large scale that's on the market right now,' said Dr. Uma Valeti, CEO and Founder of Upside Foods. Lab-grown meat is part of a larger trend in the meat industry towards sustainable meat products that don't contribute to climate change. According to the United Nations, 14.5% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are created by livestock farming. Multiple companies have sprung up in recent years focused on lab-grown meat, including Upside Foods, Vow Foods and Eat Just. The companies make a variety of meat products ranging from egg to quail. 'It's really important for our national security to be able to put meat on the table from an animal-based source,' Dr. Valeti said. Lab-grown meat is made by placing protein cells in a vat where they reproduce. 'They're floating around, they're growing, we harvest them, and we have the cell mass that we can then turn into a range of different products,' George Peppou, CEO and co-founder of Vow Food, said to Nexstar's KXAN in 2023. Questions about safety of lab-grown meat were brought up at the committee hearings in March. 'Because these products are so new, there has been no long-term research,' Polk said. 'There is no slaughterhouse, there is no poop, there is no skin, guts, there's no antibiotics used. We don't have pesticides or herbicides that are on the grass that an animal is eating. We do not have plastics or microplastics. So in all of these things, cultivated meat is a step above in terms of production quality, cleanliness and safety,' Dr. Valeti said. Right now, cultured or lab-grown meat is only legal in Singapore and parts of the United States. Israel and the Netherlands have relaxed some restrictions on the product.
Mint
12-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
Food-tech is here to feed the world without devouring it
Picture this: 295 million people face severe hunger right now. Meanwhile, traditional farming consumes 70% of global freshwater, emits 11 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide annually and is responsible for 90% of deforestation worldwide. Every year, we lose about 12 million hectares, roughly the size of Greece, to drought and erosion. With an expected 10 billion mouths to feed by 2050, the current food supply trajectory simply isn't sustainable. But there is hope. Also Read: Jagdambika Pal: Minimize food loss and waste for the sake of our planet and its people Technology breakthroughs in food production are now a science fiction writer's envy. Remember 2013's $330,000 lab-grown burger? Today, cultivated meat pioneers like Upside Foods have slashed costs to about $20 (under lab conditions), a staggering reduction. Singapore became the first country to approve cultivated chicken commercially in 2020, followed by the US in 2023. Yet, production remains minuscule. Eat Just's pilot facility currently produces only about 3kg of lab-grown chicken per week, compared to 4,000-5,000kg at a regular shop. Although meaningful scale is years away, cultivated meat's environmental potential is compelling: studies on beef show it could cut emissions and land use by up to 90% and reduce water use by around 80% compared to conventional beef (in a best-case scenario, assuming the use of renewable energy). Also Read: Food security: Let clean-tech innovation lead the way While lab-grown meat captivates imaginations, plant-based alternatives have already reshaped supermarket shelves. The global plant-based meat market, led by brands like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, reached $16 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $100 billion by 2033. These alternatives currently cost around 77% more than animal meat. Yet, the environmental benefits are undeniable. For example, pea protein emits just 0.4kg of carbon dioxide per 100g protein compared to beef's staggering 35kg. Israel's Redefine Meat pushes the envelope, using advanced 3D printing to create plant-based steaks realistic enough to impress Michelin-starred chefs across Europe. India's Blue Tribe Foods creates carbon-neutral, plant-based meats, highlighting the global nature of this wave. But why only mimic meat when we can completely rethink protein production? Enter precision fermentation. Companies like Perfect Day craft dairy proteins without cows, using genetically engineered micro-organisms, slashing water use by 99% and greenhouse gas emissions by 97%. Nature's Fynd has gone further, creating nutritious proteins from microbes; its products are now stocked across hundreds of stores. And molecular farming transforms plants themselves into factories, producing everything from life-saving vaccines to spider silk proteins inside spinach leaves. Also Read: Gene editing: Is humanity ready to rewrite the book of life? NASA-inspired technology is also revolutionizing protein production. Here, Solar Foods' Solein wins for sheer audacity. It makes protein 'from thin air" using carbon dioxide, water and renewable electricity. Its first commercial facility, which opened in April 2024, expects to produce protein with far greater efficiency than traditional farms. Air Protein uses bacteria first developed for astronauts to produce protein potentially 10,000 times more efficiently per land area than soyabeans. Similarly, spirulina algae—another NASA astronaut staple—produces protein at 50 times the rate of soyabeans, actively absorbing carbon dioxide in the process. Finally, biofortification is engineering crops to tackle global nutritional deficiencies directly. Golden Rice, engineered with beta-carotene to prevent blindness, has finally reached farmers after decades-long development. In Rwanda, iron-rich beans have increased dietary iron intake by 11% within two years. Zinc-enhanced wheat now spans 1.8 million hectares in India, addressing a 'hidden hunger' that silently affects billions worldwide. Food-tech innovations hint at greater possibilities. For instance, Japan's plans for space-based solar power could potentially revolutionize agriculture by enabling farming in deserts, underground chambers or even Mars. Also Read: Food and fertilizer subsidies should be climate-adapted and aimed better Investment trends tell their own story. After a sharp decline following a peak of $51.7 billion in 2021, food-tech funding rebounded in the first half of 2024. If scaled effectively, these innovations could slash agricultural emissions by about 80%, potentially freeing land twice the combined area of China and India. Our food system is undergoing an extraordinary transformation—proteins from thin air, 3D-printed steaks, astronaut-tested algae and nutrient-rich biofortified crops. While these ideas might seem 'moonshotish' today, remember that smartphones were pure science fiction not long ago. The technology exists, the environmental benefits are clear, and the path forward is illuminated by science and imagination. We humans are ready to 'cook up' a food system that nourishes the world and proves Thomas Malthus's dismal outlook wrong again—without devouring the planet in the process. The author is a technology advisor and podcast host.
The Verge
09-06-2025
- Business
- The Verge
Lab-grown salmon gets FDA approval
The FDA has issued its first ever approval on a safety consultation for lab-grown fish. That makes Wildtype only the fourth company to get approval from the regulator to sell cell-cultivated animal products, and its cultivated salmon is now available to order from one Portland restaurant. Wildtype announced last week that the FDA had sent a letter declaring it had 'no questions' about whether the cultivated salmon is 'as safe as comparable foods,' the customary final step in the FDA's approval process for lab-grown animal products. The FDA has sole responsibility for regulating most lab-grown seafood, whereas the task is shared with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for cultivated meat. The FDA's pre-market safety consultation is voluntary, but is 'helpful for marketability,' IP lawyer Dr. Emily Nytko-Lutz, who specializes in biotechnology patents, explained to The Verge. 'There are other pathways involving self-affirmation of safety as well as a longer food additive review process, but the FDA's authorisation with a 'No Questions' letter is a middle ground.' Wildtype salmon is now on the menu at Haitian restaurant Kann in Portland, Oregon, and the company has opened a waitlist for the next five restaurants to stock the fish. It joins Upside Foods and Good Meat, two companies with permission to sell cultivated chicken in the US, while Mission Barns has been cleared by the FDA but is awaiting USDA approval for its cultivated pork fat. At a state level, the situation is more complicated, with eight states issuing bans on lab-grown meat as the technology becomes a conservative talking point.
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
A Federal Judge Greenlights a Lawsuit That Claims Florida's Ban on Lab-Grown Meat Is Unconstitutional
"We will save our beef," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared when he signed the nation's first ban on cultivated meat last May, portraying the law as part of his administration's "focus on investing in our local farmers and ranchers." Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Wilton Simpson concurred that the governor was "standing up for Florida's farmers and consumers," saying "we must protect our incredible farmers" from "a disgraceful attempt to undermine our proud traditions and prosperity." He promised to "keep Florida's agricultural industry strong and thriving." According to Upside Foods, a California-based manufacturer of lab-grown poultry products, those comments reflect the protectionist motivation of Florida's law, which it says effectively discriminates against out-of-state businesses. On Friday, a federal judge in Florida concluded that the company, which sued state officials last August, had plausibly alleged a violation of the "dormant" Commerce Clause, a doctrine that "prevents the States from adopting protectionist measures and thus preserves a national market for goods and services," as the U.S. Supreme Court put it in 2019. "One of the primary reasons for the enactment of the Constitution was to secure a national common market," said Paul Sherman, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, which represents Upside. "Today's ruling is an important vindication of the principle that states cannot close their borders to innovative out-of-state competition, and a warning to other states that are considering banning cultivated meat." The technology that DeSantis perceives as a threat to "our local farmers and ranchers," which was first developed in 2013, uses cell samples to grow meat in bioreactors, obviating the need to raise and slaughter animals. Worldwide, more than 150 companies are working on such products, which have been approved for sale in Singapore, Israel, and the United States, where their distribution so far has been limited to chicken briefly sold by a few restaurants. Less than a week after DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1084, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey likewise approved a preemptive ban on cultivated meat. Other states, including Arizona, Tennessee, and Texas, have "considered similar bills banning lab-grown meat," Reason's Emma Camp notes, although they "ultimately did not pass." In addition to portraying Florida's ban as unconstitutional protectionism, Upside argued that it was preempted by federal law. Although U.S. District Judge Mark Walker rejected that claim, he found that Upside "has plausibly alleged that Florida's ban violates the dormant Commerce Clause by discriminating in effect against interstate commerce through excluding out-of-state businesses and products from Florida's market to protect in-state businesses against a projected decline in market share." Walker therefore rejected the state's motion to dismiss Upside's lawsuit. S.B. 1084 makes it a crime to manufacture or distribute "any meat or food product produced from cultured animal cells." That offense is classified as a second-degree misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum fine of $500 and up to 60 days in jail. Grocery stores or restaurants that sell the prohibited products can lose their operating licenses and face administrative fines of up to $5,000 per violation. Those penalties apply to any business that sells cultivated meat to Florida consumers, regardless of where it is located. But as Walker notes, "a facially neutral law can violate the dormant Commerce Clause if it discriminates in effect against interstate commerce." In this case, Upside "asserts that Florida's ban discriminates against out-of-state firms and products because it prohibits out-of-state cultivated meat from entering Florida to compete against in-state conventional meat," Walker writes. "Florida's ban on cultivated meat, Plaintiff says, is a proxy for discriminating against out-of-state products since cultivated meat is entirely produced outside of Florida. Plaintiff alleges that the ban also confers a benefit to in-state conventional meat and agricultural businesses by shielding them from the potential decline in market share that they would face from competing with out-of-state cultivated meat. And according to Plaintiff, the ban's protectionist effects were intentional." In addition to quoting the press release that DeSantis issued when he signed S.B. 1084, Upside's complaint notes that he praised the bill "from behind a podium that featured a sign stating, 'SAVE OUR BEEF.'" That signing event featured the president and president-elect of the Florida Cattlemen's Association, who "acknowledged that the purpose of the Ban is to protect their industry from out-of-state competition." The reason "we have all these cattlemen here," DeSantis explained, was that Florida had "put down the mark very clearly: We stand with agriculture. We stand with the cattle ranchers. We stand with our farmers." If the state allowed the sale of cultivated meat, he said, it would "wipe the people sitting here today out of business." Simpson, the agriculture commissioner, complained that it was "Californians [who] are participating in this crap." DeSantis acknowledged that Florida allows the sale of plant-based meat substitutes made by companies such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat. The crucial difference with cultivated meat, he said, is that "they want to say it's the same as raising cattle and doing it naturally, so there will be then no reason that you have this [conventional meat] industry. So it is designed to be a threat to agriculture as we know it." In light of that danger, he explained, "we're snuffing this out at the beginning." State legislators who supported the ban delivered a similar message. "If you believe that we are doing this because we know that Florida's agriculture can hold us down and provides plenty of safe, quality beef and agricultural products, you are absolutely correct," Rep. Danny Alvarez (R–Hillsborough County), the bill's House sponsor, said in March 2024. Around the same time, Rep. Dean Black (R–Nassau County), a rancher, said Floridians who want to try cultivated meat should "go to California," but they "sure as heck" should not be able to get it "here in Florida." As Upside's case proceeds, Walker notes, Florida will have to rebut the inference of protectionism by citing a legitimate public interest that cannot be served by "nondiscriminatory alternatives." But Upside argues that the state's ban is "not supported by any adequate health or safety justification." In approving the sale of the company's products, the lawsuit notes, the Food and Drug Administration "had no questions regarding the safety of UPSIDE's preharvest production process or the safety of foods composed of or containing cultivated chicken resulting from UPSIDE's production process." Upside adds that "the safety and healthfulness of cultivated meat and poultry is subject to the same standards of federal regulation as conventional meat and poultry." Even as DeSantis bragged about banning cultivated meat, Upside notes, he "did not voice any food-safety issue regarding cultivated meat products." More generally, state officials "did not cite concerns that cultivated meat is less healthy or safe than conventional meat." If anything, Upside argues, "cultivated meat and poultry poses fewer health and safety concerns than conventional meat because it is grown under clean and controlled conditions and thus not exposed to animal waste, animal pathogens, or environmental toxins." Even if "there were a legitimate, nondiscriminatory justification" for legislation regarding cultivated meat, Upside says, "Florida has a variety of less burdensome alternatives." If legislators wanted to avoid "consumer confusion over the nature of UPSIDE's product," for example, they could impose "disclosure requirements for food establishments that ensure cultivated meat or poultry is not sold as conventional meat or poultry." In addition to presenting himself as the savior of Florida ranchers and farmers, DeSantis bizarrely claimed he was "fighting back against the global elite's plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs to achieve their authoritarian goals," counterintuitively presenting legal restrictions on consumer choice as a blow against authoritarianism. Upside "doesn't want to force anyone to eat cultivated meat," the company says. "But it does want the opportunity to distribute its product to willing consumers, so that those consumers can decide for themselves whether UPSIDE's product is worth eating. And UPSIDE has a right to do so, because SB 1084 is unconstitutional." The post A Federal Judge Greenlights a Lawsuit That Claims Florida's Ban on Lab-Grown Meat Is Unconstitutional appeared first on
CBS News
26-04-2025
- Business
- CBS News
Federal lawsuit against Florida ban on "lab-grown" meat still alive after judge's ruling
A lawsuit against Florida's ban on "lab-grown" meat is still alive after a federal judge tossed four parts of the suit on Friday but kept a fifth. Northern District of Florida Chief Judge Mark Walker declined to dismiss a part of the lawsuit that argued Florida's restrictions give an unconstitutional advantage to Florida farmers over out-of-state competitors. Meanwhile, the judge sided with state attorneys seeking to dismiss the lawsuit and their argument that federal approval of cultivated chicken doesn't mean individual states can't ban it. U.S. regulators first signed off on the sale of what's known as "cell-cultured" or "cell-cultivated" meat in June 2023. The lawsuit had argued that Florida's law is preempted under federal laws that regulate the interstate market for meat and poultry products. Sellers say the product is a more ethical and sustainable alternative to conventionally raised chicken, beef and pork. But lawmakers in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi have called cultivated meat a threat to their states' agriculture industries and banned the sale of the product, which is made of animal cells that are fed a mix of proteins, vitamins and water and then formed into nuggets, sausages and steaks. The lawsuit was filed last year by Upside Foods, represented by the nonprofit law firm the Institute for Justice. "Upside is not looking to replace conventional meat, which will always have a place at the table," Upside CEO Uma Valeti said in a statement. "All we are asking for is the right to compete, so that Floridians can try our product and see that it is possible to have delicious meat without the need for slaughtering animals. Today's ruling is an important step toward securing that right." The governor's office and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services didn't immediately respond to emails seeking comment about the lawsuit. Gov. Ron DeSantis was flanked by cattle farmers last May when he signed the state's cultivated meat ban into law. "We stand with agriculture, we stand with the cattle ranchers, we stand with our farmers because we understand it's important for the backbone of the state," DeSantis said. "Take your fake lab-grown meat elsewhere."
