TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A producer of “lab-grown” meat has filed a lawsuit difficult a newly enacted Florida regulation that bans the sale of the product, arguing the restrictions give an unconstitutional benefit to Florida farmers over out-of-state rivals.
“If some Floridians don’t like the idea of eating cultivated chicken, there’s a simple solution: Don’t eat it,” mentioned Paul Sherman, an legal professional on the Institute for Justice, one of many teams that filed the lawsuit within the U.S. District Courtroom for the Northern District of Florida.
U.S. regulators first signed off on the sale of what’s generally known as “cell-cultured” or “cell-cultivated” meat in June of 2023. Sellers say the product is a extra moral and sustainable different to conventionally raised hen, beef and pork.
However lawmakers in Florida and Alabama have known as cultivated meat a risk to their states’ agriculture industries and banned the sale of the product, which is product of animal cells which are fed a mixture of proteins, nutritional vitamins and water after which shaped into nuggets, sausages and steaks.
Requested for touch upon the lawsuit, a spokesperson for Gov. Ron DeSantis pointed to statements he made in Could when he signed the state’s cultivated meat ban into regulation, flanked by cattle farmers.
“We stand with agriculture, we stand with the cattle ranchers, we stand with our farmers because we understand it’s important for the backbone of the state,” DeSantis mentioned. “Take your fake lab-grown meat elsewhere.”
Upside Meals, the producer behind the lawsuit, held a tasting get together in Miami earlier than the ban went into impact, plying friends with cultivated hen tostadas garnished with avocado, chipotle crema and beet sprouts.
“This is delicious meat,” Upside Meals CEO and founder Uma Valeti mentioned. “And we just fundamentally believe that people should have a choice to choose what they want to put on their plate.”
Valeti additionally famous that the meat his firm produces will not be coming from a lab however from a facility extra carefully resembling a brewery or a dairy processing plant.
