UPSIDE Foods wins first-round victory in court case taking on Florida’s cultivated meat ban
The company is taking legal action against Florida, after the state introduced a first-in-the-nation ban on cultivated meat last year.
UPSIDE Foods’ cultivated chicken. Credit: UPSIDE Foods
A company’s legal challenge to overturn Florida’s ban on cultivated meat has been handed an important first-round victory after a judge has ruled that the case can proceed.
Also known as cellular agriculture or lab-grown meat, cultivated meat is cultivated - grown - in a controlled setting using cells extracted from an animal. The production process, which is somewhat similar to brewing beer, crucially does not require the mass farming or slaughter of animals.
Cultivated meat has already generated a huge amount of buzz in the food sector, where it is being seen as having the potential to create a more sustainable food system that can produce meat with significantly less environmental, ethical, and sourcing issues.
However, the emerging industry continues to weather a political storm, which has seen cultivated meat become a target for politicians who see the innovation as a threat to traditional animal agriculture.
Last year, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis approved a bill to ban cultivated meat in the state. The move was widely seen as political, and lobbied for by agricultural interests in Florida.
“Our administration will continue to focus on investing in our local farmers and ranchers, and we will save our beef,” DeSantis said in a statement announcing the first-in-the-nation ban, which went into effect on July 1, 2024.
Following DeSantis’ move, cultivated meat producer UPSIDE Foods filed a legal challenge which alleges that Florida’s ban on cultivated meat violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. According to the lawsuit, this is because the new law was enacted to shield in-state producers of conventional meat from competition from out-of-state producers of cultivated meat.
The government has since attempted to have the legal effort thrown out of the court by asking for the lawsuit to be dismissed.
Now, in the latest development in the legal case, Chief Judge Mark Walker of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida has this week denied the government’s request for dismissal and ruled that the case will continue moving forward in the trial court.
Credit: UPSIDE Foods
The Institute for Justice, a nonprofit law firm representing UPSIDE Foods, called the ruling an important first-round victory. In a statement, the institute’s Senior Attorney Paul Sherman said:
“One of the primary reasons for the enactment of the Constitution was to secure a national common market. 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.”
Following the ruling, UPSIDE’s CEO Dr. Uma Valeti, clarified that the company is not looking to replace conventional meat, but simply asking for the “right” to compete.
The California-based startup UPSIDE made history back in 2022 when it became the first company to be granted approval from the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to sell cultivated meat.
While it’s not for retail sale just yet, it has been showcased in the US at tasting events (see what Species Unite founder Elizabeth Novogratz thought here).
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