One Step Closer to Approval of Cruelty-Free Cultivated Meat in the US

by CHARLOTTE POINTING

California cultured meat company Good Meat has been showing the USDA around its headquarters. 

For most of our lives, only one type of meat has dominated grocery store shelves: the traditional kind, made with real, slaughtered animals. Over the last few years, we’ve started to see a new kind of meat, made from plants, become more readily available. And soon, a third type could be gracing the frozen aisle: cultivated meat, made from real animals, but without the slaughter.

Just a few months after it received the nod of approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), California cultivated meat company Good Meat (a subsidiary of vegan egg brand Eat Just) has been showing the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) around its facilities.

In a post on LinkedIn, Eat Just revealed that Sanah Baig, the USDA Deputy Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics had visited its headquarters to witness how it makes both its vegan egg products and cultivated chicken, which is grown from real animal cells in bioreactors.

Alongside Ilya Sheyman, the CEO of alternative protein non-profit think tank The Good Food Institute, Baig also tasted the brand’s cultivated meat.

“We appreciate the integral work that the US government and advocacy groups like The Good Food Institute are doing to ensure that we have a safe, secure, and more sustainable food system for the future,” Eat Just noted in the post.

When will cultivated meat be available in the US?

Good Meat is getting closer to commercialization in the US, but it’s not quite there yet.

In March, it became the second cultivated meat startup (after Upside Foods) to receive a “no questions” letter from the FDA, which moved it a significant step closer to sale, but there are still hoops the brand must jump through before we can see its products on the shelves or restaurant menus in the US.

Before things can really start to accelerate for the brand, it must receive a mark of inspection and label approval from the USDA. We still can’t say exactly when that will happen, but given the recent LinkedIn post, the milestone may be inching closer.

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