Melted chocolate whirred around a melanger in California Cultured’s workshop, destined to be poured, hardened and broken into little squares. A tasty dessert, not yet legal to sell in the U.S.
This chocolate didn’t come from cacao pods in South America or Africa. It was grown in laboratory flasks and metal tanks inside a West Sacramento industrial park, part of a growing regional trend.
Yolo County has long been an agricultural hub. Now, its food tech companies are shaping what we eat in a different way.
From Davis to Woodland and West Sacramento, the county has become the regional hotbed for cultivated foods, lab-grown creations that advocates say reduce harms to animals and the environment.
“As this new industry is growing and start-ups are starting become slightly larger companies, I think this region’s very attractive for workforce and for cost of living and the price of facilities being built,” said UC Davis biotechnology program director Denneal Jamison-McClung.
Consumers can’t currently buy cultivated foods (the preferred term for cell-cultured bites) in any country outside of Singapore. But experts expect these companies to receive the government go-ahead within the next two to three years, at which point they will want to hit the ground running.
Berkeley-based Upside Foods’ cultivated chicken was approved by the FDA after a lengthy review process that concluded in November. If that product passes its USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service appraisal, the next wave of food will be available to consumers.
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