Lab-Grown Chicken Is Now Legal for Sale, USDA Rules

Lab-grown meat has been approved for sale in the US for the first time. The US Department of Agriculture ruled on Wednesday that chicken grown from cultivated cells is both safe and legal for sale. Two California-based companies, Upside Foods and Good Meat, are the beneficiaries of the ruling, marking the start of a new era in meat production. 

The two cultivated cell firms had been vying to be the first lab-grown meat producers. In November, cultivated chicken was deemed safe to eat by the US Food and Drug Administration. Clearing this final regulatory hurdle will allow Upside Foods and Good Meat to sell slaughterhouse-free chicken to retailers and restaurants nationwide.

While this is the first time lab-grown meat will be available for purchase in the US, Good Meat has been selling its wares in Singapore restaurants and retailers since 2020. In a press release, Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Good Meat, called its entry into the US market a “major moment for our company, the industry and the food system.”

Good Meat also says it’s planning to launch lab-grown chicken at a Washington, DC, restaurant owned by celebrity chef José Andrés. Andrés is well known for his climate activism and humanitarian efforts in the wake of more frequent natural disasters. 

Advocates for lab-grown meat, including animal rights campaigners and environmental activists, praise the innovation as a way to drastically reduce harm to animals and offset notoriously inhumane factory-farming practices. Cultivated meat also has considerable environmental implications with the potential to reduce a bloated carbon footprint associated with large-scale animal farming that includes grazing, growing large amounts of feed and methane emissions.

But don’t expect lab-grown meat to blow up right away. Scale and cost are still major hurdles for the burgeoning industry in order to land its goods on kitchen tables and supermarket shelves. While lab-grown meat will likely be available in some form soon, it may be years before the logistics allow for cultured chicken to compete with the low cost of animal meat. Cheap factory farming practices and mass production has allowed major meat processing companies to slash prices in the past few decades, relative to the cost of other goods.

Read more: I Tried Lab-Grown Chicken. It’s a Convincing Alternative to the Real Deal

Correction, 8:34 a.m. PT: A previous version of this story credited the wrong body with the latest regulatory approval. It is the USDA.