Judge refuses to block Florida cultivated meat law

TALLAHASSEE — A federal judge Friday rejected a request by a California-based company for a preliminary injunction against a new law banning the sale and manufacturing of “cultivated” meat in Florida.
Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker, who held a hearing Monday, issued a 21-page decision denying the preliminary injunction motion. UPSIDE Foods, Inc., filed a lawsuit in August challenging the constitutionality of the law, which was approved this year by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature.
The law makes it a second-degree misdemeanor to sell or manufacture cultivated meat, often known as lab-grown meat. The manufacturing process includes taking a small number of cultured cells from animals and growing them in controlled settings to make food.
UPSIDE Foods, which is represented by the Institute for Justice legal organization, makes chicken products. The lawsuit contends, in part, that a federal poultry-products law preempts Florida from imposing the ban.
Walker wrote that the company argues that the “ban imposes an inconsistent ‘ingredient requirement’ by prohibiting the sale or distribution of food products that contain cultivated chicken meat as an ingredient.” But he wrote the company could not identify a law or regulation “that creates a federal ‘ingredient requirement’ with respect to ‘cultivated meat.'”
The denial of the preliminary injunction does not end the lawsuit. In supporting the ban, state officials have pointed to questions about the safety of cultivated meat. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture last year approved UPSIDE to manufacture and sell its products.