UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat, two cultivated meat producers, have received approval from the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to commercially sell their chicken products. UPSIDE Foods celebrated the news on social media, expressing their excitement and calling it a historic moment that brings them closer to their vision. The approval from the USDA follows the “no questions” response issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to GOOD Meat earlier this year, affirming the safety of their lab-grown chicken product. UPSIDE Foods had received a similar approval in November 2022.
Lab-grown meat production offers a way to create consumable meat products without harming animals and reducing environmental impact. Instead of using vast amounts of land and water to raise animals for slaughter, cell cultivation technology allows for a different approach. Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just, the parent company of GOOD Meat, emphasizes this shift in approach, highlighting the potential benefits.
Lab-grown meat involves using cells from living animals, such as fertilized eggs, which are incubated and grown into meat masses. The resulting product is then processed and structured to resemble traditional butchered meat products.
GOOD Meat takes pride in being the first and only company to sell cultivated meat made from cells, emphasizing that their meat is real and produced without deforestation or taking animal lives.
