The Mississippi House of Representatives has approved a bill that prohibits the production of cultivated meat, making it the third state to enact such a ban on meat developed in laboratories from small samples of animal cells.
Under this bill, the manufacture, sale, or distribution of cultivated meat will be illegal in Mississippi. Anyone found in violation of this law could face a misdemeanor charge, with penalties including fines up to $500 and/or a maximum of three months in county jail. Similar laws passed in Florida and Alabama last year also impose potential jail time or fines of up to $500.
The legislation now awaits action from Governor Tate Reeves, who has the option to veto it. Mississippi’s agriculture commissioner, Andy Gipson, has publicly criticized the cultivated meat sector and was in favor of a 2019 measure that barred cultivated meat products from being marketed as meat within the state. In a 2024 statement on his website, he praised the cultivated meat bans enacted in Florida and Alabama, expressing his preference for meat sourced from farms over that grown in laboratories: “I want my steak to come from farm-raised beef, not a petri dish from a lab,” he said.
Suzi Gerber, the executive director of the Association for Meat, Poultry, and Seafood Innovation, a trade group for the cultivated meat sector, describes this move as “political theater.” She notes that the actual implications of the law in those states will be limited since cultivated meat is not commercially available there.
Introduced in January 2025 by Republican representatives Bill Pigott and Lester Carpenter, the Mississippi bill passed through both legislative chambers without a single dissenting vote. In contrast, similar proposals in other states faced more challenges. A bill in Wyoming that sought to ban cultivated meat was rejected in its third reading in the senate in February, while another bill in South Dakota also failed to clear a senate vote that same month.
Gerber expressed surprise but optimism regarding the outcomes in those states. In Wyoming, some senators advocated for improved packaging and labeling regulations rather than outright bans, whereas some South Dakota legislators argued that a ban would hinder free trade.
Additional states are entertaining proposals akin to those already enacted in Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. In January, a bill was introduced in Georgia aimed at criminalizing the sale of cultivated meat. Meanwhile, a bill in Nebraska, initiated at the behest of Governor Jim Pillen, seeks to prohibit cultivated meat in the state.
The Florida ban is currently the subject of a legal dispute initiated by the California-based cultivated meat company Upside Foods and the Institute of Justice, a public interest law firm. They contend that the Florida ban contravenes two provisions of the US Constitution that govern interstate commerce and the interplay between federal and state laws. A federal judge recently denied Upside Foods’ request for a preliminary injunction to prevent the enforcement of Florida’s cultivated meat ban.
The series of state bans has emerged alongside a decline in investor interest in cultivated meat. Investments in cultivated meat startups totaled only $226 million in 2023, a sharp decline from $922 million in the previous year. Early in 2024, Upside Foods reduced its workforce, and California-based SciFiFoods abruptly ceased operations later that year.
Nonetheless, there are indications that the industry is managing to withstand these difficulties. On March 8, Mission Barns, a cultivated meat company based in San Francisco, announced that the Food and Drug Administration had no further questions regarding the safety of its cultivated pork fat product, a significant milestone toward entering the US market. Only two other firms, Upside Foods and Eat Just, have received a similar response from the FDA. Mission Barns now requires approval from the US Department of Agriculture before it can launch its product in the US.
