Florida is pushing back against lab-grown meat, which Governor Ron DeSantis described as a plan from "the global elite" that wants to "force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish."
DeSantis signed a controversial law on Wednesday that will bar the sale or manufacturing of lab-grown meat in the Sunshine State.
DeSantis said the bill (SB 1084), which includes a series of changes related to the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, will protect the state’s cattle industry against “an ideological agenda that wants to finger agriculture as the problem.”
“One of the things that these folks want to eliminate is meat production in the United States,” DeSantis said while standing behind a podium with a display that read: “Save Our Beef.”
Opponents have contended that preventing sales or manufacturing of lab-grown, or cultivated, meat will halt innovation and create barriers for the free market.
The bill, in part, will make it a second-degree misdemeanor to sell or manufacture cultivated meat. The manufacturing process includes taking a small number of cultured cells from animals and growing them in controlled settings to make food.
The measure doesn’t prohibit cultivated-meat research because of concerns that such a ban could affect the space industry, which is looking at cultivated meats for long-term space journeys. The bill passed during the legislative session that ended March 8.
Backers of cultivated meat argued during the session that the bill could increase concerns by venture capitalists about investing in Florida.
“A ban like this threatens a free market and sets a dangerous precedent for government interference,” Emily Bogan, of New Jersey-based Fork & Good, Inc. told a House panel in February. “We want to ensure that affordable meat is available for generations to come.”
Justin Kolbeck, co-founder of San Francisco-based seafood company Wildtype, said during the same House meeting that the measure will likely announce Florida as “closed.”
“Far from protecting American jobs, banning cultivated seafood in the United States will deepen our country's dependence on imports from countries like China,” Kolbeck said. “This ban will create Chinese jobs at the expense of small businesses like mine. And this ban will also stifle innovation in Florida as investment dollars are redirected towards more business-friendly states.”
Wildtype is one of several lab-grown, or cultivated, meat startups that are based in the Bay Area.
Regulatory approval for cultivated meat has been slow but two Bay Area startups, Eat Just and Upside Foods, received approval last year to sell their lab-grown chicken products.
Berkeley-based Eat Just, via its subsidiary Good Meat, began partnering with Chef José Andrés to serve Eat Just's chicken at one of the celebrity chef's restaurants in D.C.
And Alameda-based Upside Foods was working with Bar Crenn to incorporate its chicken into the menu.
However, both companies paused or stopped selling their cultivated meat by early 2024, according to Wired.
Nonetheless, Upside also fought back against the Florida ban. In a February blog post, the company asked its supporters to call state legislators and "let them know about the dangers of cultivated meat bans."
Eat Just CEO Josh Tetrick chimed in on both the actual ban and the implication that lab-grown meat is an elitist conspiracy.
"@GovRonDeSantis, I'm from Alabama, mom is a hairdresser, grew up poor. This is a loss for your state," Tetrick wrote on X/Twitter.
Jim Turner and the News Service of Florida contributed to this report.
