Florida’s cultured meat ban is being challenged in a lawsuit filed yesterday in federal court by cultured meat company Upside Foods and the nonprofit public interest law firm Institute of Justice (IJ).
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill on May 1 making the sale of cultured meat illegal in Florida, and the bill went into effect on July 1. Alabama has also passed a similar bill banning cultured meat, which will go into effect on October 1.
The lawsuit filed by Upside Foods and IJ alleges that Florida’s ban is unconstitutional on three counts. First, they argue that the ban violates the Federal Supremacy Clause, which allows federal law to take precedence over state law in certain circumstances. The lawsuit alleges that Florida’s ban violates two different provisions of the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Poultry Products Inspection Act.
The complaint also alleges that the ban violates the Commerce Clause, which gives Congress the exclusive power to regulate interstate commerce. The IJ argues that the Commerce Clause prohibits states from enacting laws that unreasonably restrain interstate commerce, and that Florida’s current ban has a discriminatory effect on interstate commerce.
“Florida’s law has nothing to do with protecting health and safety,” IJ Senior Attorney Paul Sherman said at a press conference today. “This is a clear example of economic protectionism.”
Sherman said Upside Foods and IJ will also file for a preliminary injunction to allow the company to sell its cultured meat in Florida while the litigation is still ongoing. According to the complaint, Upside planned to distribute its cultured chicken at Art Basel in Miami in early December 2024. The company protested the Florida ban by hosting a tasting event for its chicken in Miami on June 27, just before the ban was set to take effect.
Sherman said the Alabama ban is “on the horizon,” but that the IJ was targeting a Florida law that predates the Alabama ban. “We’re hopeful that we can get a quick ruling on the preliminary injunction in Florida,” and use that as precedent to challenge the Alabama ban, he said.
The lawsuit was welcomed by the Good Food Institute (GFI), a nonprofit focused on promoting alternative proteins and serving as counsel on the case. “Consumers, not politicians, decide what meat they want to buy and feed their families. This lawsuit seeks to protect those rights, as well as the rights of companies to compete in a fair and open marketplace,” Laura Braden, director of regulatory affairs at GFI, said in an emailed statement.
Florida Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson praised the cultured meat ban for protecting the state’s agriculture industry from new ways of making meat: “We must protect our great farmers and the integrity of American agriculture. Lab-grown meat is a shameful attempt to undermine our proud traditions and prosperity and is the direct antithesis of real agriculture,” he said as the bill was signed.
But at a press conference, Upside Food CEO Uma Valeti argued that cultured meat should be seen as a complement to traditional livestock farming, not a replacement. Watching the Florida Legislature pass a bill to ban its chickens, she said, “is like watching a bunch of old guys defending an incumbent industry against new technology.”
Updated 15 August 2024, midnight BST: Details of the Good Food Institute’s focus areas have been updated.
