Cultured meat company Upside Foods is suing Florida to ban lab-grown meat

Upside Foods, a cultured meat company, sued Florida to ban lab-grown meat, arguing that the state’s law banning the sale of cultured meat is unconstitutional.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the ban into law in May, describing the legislation as a way to “combat the global elite’s plan to force the world to eat petri-dish meat or insects to achieve their authoritarian goals “.

In a lawsuit filed Monday in federal court, Upside Foods and the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit public interest law firm, argue that Florida’s ban on lab-grown meat is about protecting the state’s cattle industry — and that the law is unconstitutional. The complaint alleges that SB 1084 violates the Constitution’s Supremacy and Commerce Clauses, as well as two federal laws governing the inspection and distribution of meat and poultry products.

“Our Constitution gives Congress the power to create and enforce a national common market so that people can make their own decisions about what products they want to buy on the interstate market,” said Paul Sherman, senior attorney at the Institute. for Justice, during a press conference on Tuesday. “States simply don’t have the power to walk away from products that have been approved by the USDA and the FDA.”

Alternatives to conventional meat products, including plant-based and cultured meat, have become a sticking point in the culture war between liberals and conservatives. As a result, companies that offer alternatives to animal products have found themselves targeted by state-level laws that restrict or completely ban them from selling their products.

Upside and the Institute for Justice argue that Florida’s ban on cultured meat is meant to protect the state’s cattle industry from out-of-state competition. The ban therefore violates the “latent aspect” of the Commerce Clause, which prohibits state protectionism, Upside argues. The complaint states that during the signing event, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was flanked by cattlemen and “spoke in front of a podium that had a sign that said ‘SAVE OUR BEEF.'”

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, who is named as a defendant, called the lawsuit “ridiculous.”

Lab-grown “meat” has not been shown to be safe enough for consumers and is being pushed by a liberal agenda to shut down farms. Food security is a matter of national security, and our farmers are the first line of defense,” Simpson said in a statement. “The states are the laboratory of democracy, and Florida has a right not to be a corporate guinea pig. Leave the Frankenmeat experiment to California.”

But Upside’s complaint claims Florida’s ban on lab-grown meat is about protectionism, not food safety, and points to DeSantis’ press conference announcing the ban as evidence.

The Food and Drug Administration declared Upside’s products safe to eat in 2022, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved the sale of products from Upside and a competitor, Good Meat, the following year.

Upside claims the Florida ban also hurts the company’s operations elsewhere in the country. Florida’s ban on cultured meat — the first in the nation — has inspired copycat legislation across the country. Alabama banned lab-grown meat in May, though that legislation won’t go into effect until October. Legislators in Arizona, Kentucky, Iowa, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia have introduced similar bans. In the complaint, Upside and the Institute for Justice argue that the “growing patchwork of conflicting state laws governing cultured meat” makes it more difficult for Upside to work with national meat distributors, “who generally will not carry products on which they cannot legally sell in each of them. state.”

Upside began a partnership with a Miami chef before Florida’s ban on lab-grown meat went into effect on July 1, according to the complaint, which was filed in the Northern District of Florida. That chef, who is not named in the complaint, began making plans with Upside to host a tasting event at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival in Miami on February 20, 2025. Upside also planned to distribute its products at Art Basel Miami in early December of this year and had “identified other chefs in Miami and Tallahassee” who were interested in distributing his product, according to the complaint. Florida’s ban now prevents those events from happening because Upside’s participation could result in criminal penalties for itself and its potential business partners, the complaint alleges.

Upside is asking the court to declare Florida’s cultured meat ban unconstitutional and to issue preliminary and permanent injunctions against the law. During the press conference, Sherman, the IJ attorney, said Upside would like the order to go into effect before Art Basel.

“If consumers don’t like the idea of ​​cultured meat, there’s a simple solution,” Sherman said. “He doesn’t have to eat. But they can’t make that decision for other consumers.”