The U.S. Department of Agriculture approved the sale of cell-cultured chicken by two companies a little more than a year ago, giving the seal of approval for those businesses to sell lab grown meat to Americans.
But now if you sell, manufacture, or distribute cultivated meat in Florida, you would be breaking the law and, if found guilty, could face 60 days in jail and a fine of up to $500.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the law (
) on May 1 and it went into effect on Monday, making the Sunshine State the first in the nation to ban lab-grown meat (
became the second state to do so later in May, but its law won’t go into effect until October).
Saying that his motivation was to protect Florida consumers, Tampa Republican state Sen. Jay Collins sponsored the bill during the 2024 legislative session in conjunction with the Florida Department of Agriculture.
“There are many concerns right here and, until we have those studies and there’s proof positive that this process is going to work, we want to ban this in the state of Florida because it’s just not there quite yet,” Collins told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Agriculture, Environment, and General Government in February.