On this day in vegan history · June 21, 2023
The USDA Clears Cultivated Chicken for Sale
After years of asking whether meat grown from animal cells was even legal to sell, two California companies got their answer from the federal government itself: yes, starting now.
The facts
- Date
- June 21, 2023
- Companies approved
- UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat (Eat Just)
- First restaurant
- Bar Crenn, San Francisco, with Chef Dominique Crenn
- Production facility
- UPSIDE's EPIC plant in Emeryville, California
On June 21, 2023, the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service issued grants of inspection to UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat (a brand of Eat Just), the final regulatory step clearing their cultivated chicken for sale in the United States. Both companies had already cleared an FDA safety review and a USDA label approval earlier that year, so the grant of inspection meant their chicken would now be produced under the same federal oversight as conventional poultry. Chef Dominique Crenn planned to serve UPSIDE's chicken at her three-Michelin-star restaurant Bar Crenn in San Francisco within weeks, while GOOD Meat's chicken headed to a José Andrés restaurant in Washington, D.C. It was the first time any government had approved cultivated meat for sale outside Singapore, where GOOD Meat had been selling it since 2020.
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.
-
This approval will fundamentally change how meat makes it to our table.
Dr. Uma Valeti, founder and CEO of UPSIDE Foods, in a press release, June 21, 2023
Source: PR Newswire -
Today's historic announcement, two American companies earning regulatory approval to bring cultivated meat to U.S. consumers, marks a pivotal moment in food and agriculture.
Bruce Friedrich, president of the Good Food Institute, in a press statement, June 21, 2023
Source: Good Food Institute
Why it still matters
This was the moment cultivated meat stopped being a lab demo and became a federally inspected food product, the same status conventional chicken has. Every cultivated meat company that followed had a regulatory path to point to, because two of them had already walked it.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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