Republican politicians in some states have a new goal: meat raised in labs rather than via animals.
So far, at least seven states have considered bills in 2024 that would ban the distribution or sale of lab-grown meat, the Financial Times reported Sunday. In each case, Republicans are leading the charge.
One of the most prominent examples is Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis has expressed opposition to lab-grown meat.
Both houses of the state Legislature passed a bill in February banning the sale of lab-grown meat, although it is unclear whether DeSantis will sign the measure, the Times reported. DeSantis’ office did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Other states, like Arizona and Tennessee, are considering similar bills.
Some laws claim that lab-grown meat – also known as cultured meat – threatens states’ current agricultural economies. A version of Arizona’s proposal from February, for example, repeatedly mentions the state’s livestock industry.
“The production and sale of lab-grown and cell-cultured animal products threatens to harm the beneficiaries of Arizona Trust Lands and the highest and best use of the State’s Trust Lands, which includes the leasing of state-trusted land to ranchers for livestock grazing to fund public schools and other public institutions,” the bill reads. If passed, the legislation would create a civil penalty of up to $25,000 for the sale or production of lab-grown meat in Arizona.
Other lawmakers have launched more opaque attacks on lab-grown meat. Tennessee state Rep. Bud Hulsey said at a hearing in March that proponents of lab-grown meat “would probably like to eat bugs with Bill Gates,” according to the Times. Lab-grown meat relies on cells from animals commonly consumed in the United States, such as chicken, beef and fish.
For years, lab-grown meat startups have promised meat without the need to slaughter animals. In the United States, two major competitors in this space are Upside Foods and Good Meat, the lab-grown meat division of Eat Just, the company known for its mung bean-based scrambled egg mix.
But despite hundreds of millions of dollars in funding – including from big names like Gates and Jeff Bezos – lab-grown meat startups don’t appear ready to launch mass sales of their products. Last year, for example, Upside Foods partnered with a single San Francisco restaurant to serve its lab-grown chicken.
Some experts told The Counter in 2021 that mass production of lab-grown meat was virtually impossible for startups using their current approach, which involves growing meat cells in large containers called bioreactors.
This technology has long been used to grow small batches of cells in the medical world – to produce vaccines, for example – but it is difficult to produce the much larger quantities of cells that would be needed for hamburgers or boxes of nuggets. chicken, experts said.
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