FDA Moves Cultivated Meat Closer to US Tables With Landmark Approval

A First-of-Its-Kind Regulatory Step

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has taken a significant step toward allowing Americans to eat meat that did not require the slaughter of an animal. In a landmark response to a pre-market consultation, the FDA said it had reviewed Upside Foods’ production process and had no further questions about the safety of its chicken made from cultured animal cells. “We have no further questions at this time about the firm’s production process or the food made from cultured animal cells,” the agency told Upside Foods. The decision does not place the product on supermarket shelves immediately, but it is the first time the FDA has completed such a review for a meat product grown from animal cells.

Regulators were careful to describe the move as the close of a consultation rather than an outright approval. Under the current U.S. framework, the FDA assesses the start of the process—the living cells, the growth medium, and the bioreactor environment—while the U.S. Department of Agriculture oversees the final stages and the sale of harvested meat. Still, the company celebrated the decision as a watershed moment for the technology. Upside Foods, founded in 2015 by cardiologist Uma Valeti, has spent years developing a way to grow chicken meat from a small sample of cells. The FDA’s green light suggests the company’s data were convincing enough to satisfy the agency’s food-safety experts.

From Lab to Plate: How It Works

Cultivated meat, often called lab-grown or cell-cultured meat, begins with cells taken from a living animal. In Upside Foods’ case, the cells come from a chicken and are placed in a nutrient-rich mixture inside a stainless-steel vessel known as a bioreactor. There, the cells are kept at a bodylike temperature and fed amino acids, carbohydrates, fats, minerals, and vitamins—the same basic building blocks that sustain a conventional bird. Over days or weeks, the cells multiply and differentiate into the muscle, fat, and connective tissue that define meat. The company says the final product has the same biological composition as conventionally produced chicken and can be breaded, grilled, or shredded in familiar meals.

Proponents argue that this process bypasses many of the ethical and environmental problems associated with industrial animal agriculture. No animals are killed once the original cell sample is obtained. The production system is far smaller than a feedlot and can be housed in warehouse-scale facilities. However, the science is demanding. Cells must be kept free of contamination, and the growth medium must be consistent enough to produce identical batches. At the scale required to compete with billions of chickens raised annually, the engineering challenges remain substantial.

Not an Immediate Approval

Despite the FDA’s encouraging response, Upside Foods still needs USDA approval before its chicken reaches restaurants or grocery stores. In the United States, a 2019 agreement divided oversight of cell-cultured meat between the two agencies. The FDA is responsible for the biological inputs and the growth process. The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service is responsible for the finished product, including inspection of the facility where cells are harvested and packaged. Upside Foods will need a formal grant of inspection and a registered label before commercial distribution can begin.

The company has said it is already working toward that goal. It operates a pilot production facility in Emeryville, California, and has indicated that its first products may appear in high-end restaurants before they become available in supermarkets. That limited launch would allow Upside to fine-tune production and gather feedback before attempting the enormous scale required to sell cultivated chicken as a mainstream protein.

Global Race for Cultivated Meat

The United States is not the first country to reach this point. In December 2020, Singapore became the first government to approve the sale of cultivated meat, allowing Eat Just’s Good Meat brand to sell cultured chicken in nuggets and other forms. Israel, the Netherlands, and several other countries have invested heavily in cellular agriculture, hoping to become home to the next generation of food producers. Upside Foods’ U.S. milestone is noteworthy partly because the American market is one of the largest for animal protein, and a successful rollout here could encourage other companies to pursue regulatory approvals in new territories.

Food regulators in the European Union, Britain, Australia, and elsewhere are watching the U.S. process closely. Many have their own pre-market safety rules that will need to be adapted to cultivated products. Some countries have chosen a different approach by requiring ingredients to be authorized as novel foods, a slower path than the U.S. consultation model. That divergence means global access to cultivated meat will probably remain uneven for years.

Environmental Promise and Skepticism

Supporters say cell-cultured meat could deliver major environmental gains. Raising livestock uses about a third of the world’s ice-free land, and animal agriculture produces a significant share of global greenhouse gas emissions. A meat industry that relies on large steel tanks could theoretically use far less land and water, and would eliminate the use of antibiotics as growth promoters if producers choose to keep their systems free of them. Life-cycle assessments of the industry’s emerging products have been mixed, however. Some published analyses that assume renewable electricity and sophisticated nutrient recycling conclude that cultivated meat has a smaller carbon footprint than beef, while others find that current production methods could be more energy-intensive than poultry farming and perhaps comparable to pork.

Skeptics also point to the nutritional and economic side. Cultivated meat is made from real cells, not plant proteins, so nutritionally it is closer to conventional meat than a soy-based burger. But the growth medium currently contains highly refined ingredients, and producing those ingredients itself requires raw materials and energy. Until facilities operate at commercial scale, the true environmental cost will be difficult to calculate. Food scientists agree on one point: the technology is no longer a laboratory curiosity, but it is also not automatically a panacea.

Challenges Ahead

Price remains one of the biggest obstacles. The first lab-grown burger, unveiled in London in 2013, cost more than $300,000 to produce. Costs have fallen dramatically since then, but cell-cultured chicken still carries a premium over conventionally raised chicken, which is among the cheapest meats in the American grocery store. Consumers are also not uniformly convinced. Polls have consistently shown a large share of Americans are skeptical or unwilling to try cultivated meat, with concerns ranging from unfamiliarity to distrust of processing. Labeling could become another arena of conflict. Rancher groups and conventional meat producers have pressed for clear terms such as “cell-cultured” or “lab-grown” to distinguish the products, while cultivated-meat companies worry that unflattering labels may discourage consumption before the market can mature.

Regulatory acceptance does not guarantee commercial survival. Companies will need to build much larger facilities than anything that exists today, lower costs, pass food-safety inspections, and persuade retailers and fast-food chains to place the product on menus. The FDA’s decision helps clear the first hurdle, but the row of hurdles behind it remains long.

What Happens Next

Upside Foods has not announced a public date for its first U.S. sales. The logical next milestones are the USDA grant of inspection and approval of a label that will tell shoppers what they are buying. The company may also argue for the use of the term “cultivated meat,” which its supporters regard as more accurate and more appetizing than “lab-grown.” Other American companies, including Good Meat and a growing list of startups, are waiting in line for similar FDA consultations and may turn this first decision into a template.

In the longer term, the broader question is whether cultivated meat can become a true alternative to conventional agriculture or remain a premium niche product. The answer depends on engineering, consumer habits, agricultural politics, and the cost of electricity, nutrients, and real estate. The announcement is the first step, not the finish line. But by moving from the research lab to the regulatory sphere, cultivated meat has reached a stage once considered impossible—and the countdown for its arrival on American plates has truly begun.