The lab-grown meat industry has achieved a significant milestone in the United States, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) giving two California-based companies–Upside Foods and Eat Just–the necessary regulatory approvals to begin commercial production and sale to the public.
The move paves the way for these firms to produce and sell cell-cultivated meat products. The approval is a first for the United States, marking a historic shift in the food industry. “It’s cool to see an idea become an industry,” says Eric Schulze, VP of product and regulation at Upside Foods. The process involves growing animal cells in bioreactors using tissue samples from living animals, providing an alternative to both traditional meat and existing plant-based alternatives.
Singapore was the first to approve such cultured meat, greenlighting Eat Just’s cultivated chicken in 2020. Eat Just, founded in 2011, also produces plant-based alternatives. Upside Foods, founded in 2015, has also been diligently developing its technology and navigating the regulatory landscape.
The USDA approval follows sign-offs from the FDA- Upside Foods received its FDA signoff in November 2022 and Eat Just in March 2023. In June, the USDA granted label approval to both companies, allowing them to sell their products under the name “cell-cultivated chicken”.
Po Bronson, general partner at SOSV, Upside’s first venture capital investor, recognized this as a major milestone, stating, “Making sure food is safe is really important. It’s absolutely necessary, and we wouldn’t have a future industry without it.”
Both companies plan to initially launch their products in restaurants. Eat Just’s cultivated chicken will first be available in a Washington, DC restaurant, while Upside’s products will be served at San Francisco’s Bar Crenn by summer’s end. As Schulze acknowledges, the next significant challenge will be scaling up production. “It’s an incredible, historic moment,” he says. “The next giant hurdle is scaling up. Frankly, that’s what matters.”
