Lab-grown meat will be able to be sold to US consumers for the first time, with the federal government granting permission for two separate businesses to offer their chicken products to people.
Both Upside Foods and Good Meat said on Wednesday they had been given permission by the US Department of Agriculture to produce and sell chicken that has been grown from a cluster of sample animal cells in large metal vats.
The approval means that the US becomes just the second country in the world, after Singapore, to allow the sale of meat grown from animal cells, a breakthrough touted by the nascent industry as being better for both animals, which aren’t harmed in the process, and the environment.
Josh Tetrick, chief executive of Good Meat, said that the approval is a “major moment for our company, the industry and the food system”. Good Meat has been selling its lab-grown chicken at hawker stalls, butchers and restaurants in Singapore since 2020.
The commercial sale of lab-grown meat in the US will “fundamentally change how meat makes it to our table”, according to Uma Valeti, chief executive of Upside Foods.
“It’s a giant step forward towards a more sustainable future – one that preserves choice and life. We are excited to launch with our signature, whole-textured Upside chicken and can’t wait for consumers to taste the future.”
Both companies had previously received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration.
The nascent lab-grown meat sector has gathered pace in the US over the past year, with a number of different startups jostling for position to challenge plant-based offerings such as the Impossible burger, which have struggled of late.
The new products are not vegetarian, but rather meat that has been grown in the sort of setting more familiar to the pharmaceutical industry than the food sector. A scraping of cells are taken from an animal, such as a cow or chicken, and then multiplied into cuts of meat in bioreactors.
Proponents of the sector claim that it is superior to the traditional livestock industry on animal welfare grounds, as well as the ruinous impact meat production currently has upon the environment via greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation and air and water pollution.
Critics have, however, questioned whether the specialized resources and energy required to produce the meat will also have a significant impact.
For now, the lab-grown meat market is getting off to a quiet start in the US – Upside’s chicken will be launched at Bar Crenn in San Fransisco, while Good Meat’s product will be sold first at an undisclosed restaurant in Washington DC.
