On this day in vegan history · March 7, 2025
The FDA Clears the First Cultivated Pork
A San Francisco startup got the green light to sell fat grown from pig cells, and cultivated meat finally stepped past chicken.
The facts
- Date
- March 7, 2025
- Company
- Mission Barns, San Francisco (founded 2018)
- Product
- Cultivated pork fat, grown from Yorkshire pig belly fat cells
- Context
- First cultivated pork clearance; earlier 2022 FDA clearances covered cultivated chicken only
On March 7, 2025, the FDA completed its pre-market consultation for a food made with cultured pork fat cells submitted by Mission Barns, a San Francisco company founded in 2018 by Eitan Fischer and David Bowman. The fat is grown from belly fat cells taken from domestic Yorkshire pigs and cultured in bioreactors rather than raised and slaughtered. It was the first cultivated pork product cleared in the United States, following FDA clearances for cultivated chicken from UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat back in 2022. The product still needed a separate USDA sign-off before it could reach a plate, but the FDA's word meant the agency saw no safety objection to a pig fat cell line grown outside a pig.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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as safe as comparable foods produced by other methods
FDA, in its pre-market consultation response on Mission Barns' cultured pork fat
Source: The National Law Review -
This is the first approval in the cultivated meat space in a while
Eitan Fischer, Mission Barns founder, on the FDA clearance
Source: AgFunderNews
Why it still matters
Cultivated meat had spent three years stuck on chicken. Getting a mammal fat cell line past the FDA showed the review process could handle a different species, which is the real test for whether this technology can ever cover more than a novelty item on one restaurant's menu.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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