Florida Bans Lab-Grown Meat

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has officially signed legislation to ban — and criminalize — the creation and sale of lab-grown meat in the state, calling it a “global elite” plan that he must stop. Those who violate the law face a second-degree misdemeanor charge, which is punishable by up to 60 days in jail or a $500 fine.

“Florida is 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,” DeSantis said in a statement. “We will save our beef.”

This marks the first law of its kind in the U.S., however, several other states, including Alabama, Tennessee, and Arizona, are attempting to follow suit. 

As Food & Wine previously reported, in 2023, Florida legislators began working toward the ban via two bills, HB 1071 and SB 1084. On February 6, the state’s House of Representatives passed SB 1084. The bill specifically bans the creation and sale of cell-cultivated meat, which differs from traditional veggie burgers and meat alternatives like Impossible Burgers.  Cell-cultivated meat, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) defines as, “developed in a lab, grown from a sample of animal cells that does not require the slaughter of animals.” So yes, it’s actually meat, but no animals are born or killed in the process. 

The development of cell-cultivated meat, the CRS explained, happens in five steps: the biopsy of animal cells, cell banking, cell growth, harvesting, and food processing. In the U.S. the industry has heavy oversight by both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). 

Currently, there are about 150 companies around the world involved in the cell-cultivated meat industry, 43 of which are based in the U.S. Of those 43, just two companies, Good Meat and Upside Food, have FDA approval in the U.S., the CRS explained. And though it’s still a small industry, there has already been close to $3 billion invested in its growth via private capital, an additional $5 million has been issued via the National Science Foundation in research grants, and $12 million in grants by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

“The United States has a tremendous lead in terms of alternative proteins right now. We have 43 cultivated meat companies in the world. But this kind of political rhetoric and these laws put that in jeopardy,” Tom Rossmeissl, the head of global marketing at Eat Just Inc., which owns Good Meat, shared with NBC about the new Florida ban. 

Upside Foods also shared in a statement with NBC, “This type of discriminatory legislation jeopardizes the United States’ leadership in biotechnology and enables countries like China to gain an unfair advantage,” a very real threat as China has put the production of cell-cultivated meat as a major part of its five-year agricultural plan for national food security. (South Korea, Israel, and the Netherlands, where the first cell-cultivated meat was developed in 2013, have all also put in place favorable laws toward cell-cultivated meat and put serious dollars behind the industry.) Additionally, the spokesperson noted that by banning the production of cell-cultivated meat, Florida legislators may be putting the future of the state’s food supply in jeopardy as the company says Florida’s protein demand is expected to double by 2050.

However, legislators, including DeSantis, say this is simply all about protecting beef. 

“Farming and cattle are incredibly important industries to Florida,” Rep. Tyler Sirois, the Republican who introduced a similar bill, HB 1071, shared with Politico in November. “So I think this is a very relevant discussion for our state to have.” We’ll note here that The Florida Cattle Political Action Committee (the COW Pac) has contributed $75,000 to Ron DeSantis since 2017, along with $72,000 to the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee. It also provided campaign contributions to Sirois.  

But not everyone involved in the meat industry in America agrees with the ban. In February, The North American Meat Institute, a national trade association that represents 95% of red meat producers and suppliers (along with pork, lamb, veal, and poultry suppliers) in the U.S., wrote an open letter to DeSantis opposing the ban, stating that the ban “would be preempted by federal law and because they are bad public policy that would restrict consumer choice and stifle innovation.”

Several Florida Democrats also opposed the bill, including Lori Berman, who told NBC, “The cattle industry lobbied against cultivated meat, so we are now banning an entire industry in our state,” adding, “We’re just short-changing an entire industry.”

Still, Good Meat promised via an X (previously Twitter) post that it isn’t “going anywhere.” It added, “In a state that purportedly prides itself on being a land of freedom and individual liberty, its government is now telling consumers what meat they can or cannot purchase.”