Governor Ron DeSantis on May 1 signed a bill not only banning but criminalizing the manufacture and sale of cultured meat in Florida. A statement from the governor’s office linked the still far-off technology to a global conspiracy.
“Florida is taking action to stop the World Economic Forum’s goal of forcing the world to eat lab-grown meat and insects,” said a statement from the governor’s office.
In a statement directly attributed to DeSantis, he said, “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. Our administration will continue to focus on investing in our local farmers and ranchers, and we will save our beef.”
The Sunshine State joins Alabama, Arizona and Tennessee in prohibiting cultured or cultivated meat, which is still two to 10 years away from wide availability, according to our May exhaustive report on the subject.
Only two companies in the U.S. – Good Meat and Upside Foods – have received the full set of approvals from USDA and FDA to manufacture and sell their cultivated chicken. While both are providing small-quantity restaurant tastings, neither appears close to launching in grocery stores. Other companies, including some developing beef and seafood, are in developmental stages.
When might it appear in grocery stores? “It could be anywhere from two years to 10 years,” Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just, parent firm of Good Meat, said in our May cover story.
“The industry is not in a place right now where it can produce at a large scale,” he continued. “To achieve that, we have significant technology, engineering, capex [capital expenditures] barriers. Those are the most significant steps that the industry needs to check off. I don’t need any more data to tell me consumers really like it, are open to it.”
The Florida bill, like those in other states, appears just as intent on shielding its ranching industry as in protecting citizens from a new technology. DeSantis’ press release listed recent financial incentives for farmers and protections against lawsuits.
“The cattle industry lobbied against cultivated meat, so we are now banning an entire industry in our state,” Lori Berman, one of 10 Florida Democratic senators who voted against the bill, was quoted by NBCNews.com. She called the bill “shortsighted,” seeing cultivated meat as a solution to future food shortage problems.
In addition to the efforts in Alabama, Arizona and Tennessee, a pending U.S. Senate Bill would ban cultivated meat products from being served in federally subsidized school lunches.
