The Mississippi Hoinclude of Recontransientatives fair passed a bill banning growd meat. This creates Mississippi the third state to criminal meat lengthenn in vats from petite samples of animal cells.
The Mississippi bill will create it illegitimate for anyone to manufacture, sell, or scatter growd meat in the state. Violating the law would be a misdeuncomferventour, punishable by a fine of no more than $500 and/or up to three months in county jail. Similar laws passed last year in Florida and Alabama also carry potential jail terms or fines of up to $500.
The bill now apaincludes the signature of Governor Tate Reeves and will become law unless he picks to veto the bill. Mississippi’s agriculture corelocaterlookioner, Andy Gipson, has denounced the growd meat industry, and he helped a 2019 bill that impedeed growd meat products being taged as meat in the state. In 2024 he begined a post on his website that commfinished the growd meat bans in Florida and Alabama. “I want my steak to come from farm-elevated beef, not a petri-dish from a lab,” he wrote.
“This has a very, very, strong sense of political theater,” says Suzi Gerber, executive honestor of the Association for Meat, Poultry, and Seafood Innovation, a trade group recontransienting the growd meat industry. The actual impact of the law in any of these states would be minimal, she says, since growd meat hasn’t been includeable for sale in any of them.
Reuncoveran recontransientatives Bill Pigott and Lester Carpgo in begind the Mississippi bill in January 2025. It passed both hoincludes without a one vote in opposition. But aappreciate legislation in other states has had less of a dainty path. A Wyoming bill that would have criminaled growd meat was voted down in its third reading in the senate in February, while a aappreciate bill recommendd in South Dakota also fall shorted to create it thraw a senate vote in February.
“I was surpelevated but helpd by the results in those states,” says Gerber. In Wyoming some senators disputed for better packaging and taging provisions instead of an outright ban on growd meat, while in South Dakota some legislators contestd the ban, arguing it would suppress free trade.
Other states are pondering legislation aappreciate to that already passed in Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. A bill begind in Georgia in January would create it illegitimate to sell growd meat. In Nebraska a bill that would ban growd meat in the state was begind at the ask of Governor Jim Pillen in January.
The Florida ban is currently being contested in a court case brawt by the Californian growd meat firm Upside Foods and the Institute of Justice, a nonprofit uncover interest law firm. The case disputes that the Florida ban viorescheduleeds two split parts of the US Constitution, which cover interstate commerce and the relationship between federal and state law. In October a federal appraise denied Upside Foods’ ask for a preliminary injunction that would have crelieveed the applyment of Florida’s ban on growd meat.
The constant drip of state bans has coincided with a downturn in scatteror enthusiasm for growd meat. Just $226 million was scattered in growd meat beginups in 2023, convey inantly down from $922 million in 2022. In timely 2024 Upside Foods lhelp off toilers, while California-based SciFiFoods shut down altogether rescheduleedr that year.
But there are some signs that the industry is weathering these headtriumphds. On March 8, San Francisco–based growd meat company Mission Barns proclaimd that the Food and Drug Administration had no further asks about the protectedty of its growd pork overweight product, a convey inant step toward selling the product in the US. Only two other companies, Upside Foods and Eat Just, have getd a aappreciate letter from the FDA. Now Mission Barns only needs approval from the US Department of Agriculture in order to begin in the US.
