If you haven’t been following the food tech sector in recent years, the idea of slaughter-free meat cultivated from cells might still seem like the stuff of science fiction. But on the other side of the world, it’s already a reality. This past December, the city-state of Singapore granted the company Eat Just permission to produce and sell cell-cultured meat. The company debuted the meat during an event at the private social club 1880 shortly after winning government approval. It was the first time cell-cultured meat has ever been served in a restaurant.
Unfortunately, the current U.S. regulatory process for cell-cultured meat is inhibiting us from making the kind of progress that Singapore is making. This is a massive missed opportunity for a nation that prides itself on being a leader in innovation.
Consider that typically, U.S. food safety regulation is a fairly lax process, at least compared to some other countries. However, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) released its newly agreed upon standards for the regulatory oversight of cell-cultured meat in 2019 and determined that meat cultured from cells will require regulatory oversight from not just the FDA and FSIS, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as well. It was a long road just to get to this decision, say nothing for how long it will take to move products through the newly designed process. Two years on with still no products on the American market, it’s clear that cell-cultured meat is being held to a higher safety standard than most food products. This does the U.S. a disservice: As former Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue observed to reporters at a North American Meat Institute event, “We don’t want this new technology to feel like they’ve got to go offshore or outside the United States to get a fair regulatory protocol.”
Food safety is of critical importance—I’m not arguing for throwing caution to the wind (Singapore took two years to review Eat Just’s cultured chicken before granting their approval). But unlike conventional meat, cell-cultured meat is made in sterile environments, with a demonstrably low incidence of microbials and few if any antibiotics are required. And yet, its developers continue to wait with their hands tied for the U.S. government to give them the green light. Treating cell-cultured meat differently from other food products seems to be based on cultural biases about what we consider food, rather than a true evaluation of facts.
Close-up of cell-cultured chicken.
Eat JUST, Inc.
Cell-cultured meat has the potential to alleviate global problems like climate change and, by extension, food insecurity—issues which the U.S. should be taking a central role in addressing. We’re less than a decade away from a global point of no return with the climate catastrophe, and if we continue on this track, the UN estimates that there will be 840 million undernourished people in the world by 2030. We are facing a cluster of environmental and humanitarian problems. With all our homegrown ingenuity and talent, we have no excuse for dragging our feet.
Not only that, but there are economic incentives as well. After all, cell-cultured meat is big business. Memphis Meats—a California-based company centered around developing cell-cultured meat—raised over $160 million in funding last year alone, with Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and meat giant Tyson Foods
TSN
An excited customer at 1880 ready to make history.
Eat JUST, Inc.
It’s promising that billionaires and businesses are betting on cell-cultured meat, but it’s about time the U.S. government did as well. Instead of standing in the way, the U.S. could be championing cell-cultured meat as a solution to our urgent public health and environmental crises. As Americans, we like to think of our country as a homeland for innovation, entrepreneurship, and novel ideas. If we want to hold on to that identity, we need to put in the work. Right now, that means expediting innovations like cell-cultured meat that address some of the most pressing issues of our time. The U.S. and the world will be better for it.