Judge to weigh putting Florida meat law on ice

A federal judge will hear arguments next month about whether he should block a new Florida law that bars the production and sale of “cultivated meat” in the state.

Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker has scheduled a hearing Oct. 7 on a request by the California-based UPSIDE Foods, Inc. for a preliminary injunction against the law, which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed May 1, according to a court docket.

UPSIDE Foods filed a lawsuit last month challenging the constitutionality of the law and requested a preliminary injunction. The lawsuit contends, in part, that a federal poultry-products law preempts Florida from imposing such a ban.

The motion for a preliminary injunction pointed to what is known as the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which generally leads to federal laws trumping conflicting state laws.

“An injunction will not substantially injure others, because it will not compel the state to take any action or obligate any resources, and because the state has no legitimate interest in the continued operation of an unconstitutional law,” the motion said. “An injunction is in the public interest because it will permit UPSIDE to exercise its right to bring innovative products to the interstate market and allow consumers to exercise their freedom to decide for themselves what foods they want to eat.”

The state faces a deadline next week for filing a response to the motion for a preliminary injunction. Cultivated meat, often known as lab-grown meat, is made through a process that includes taking a small number of cultured cells from animals and growing them in controlled settings to make food.

State Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson last month called the lawsuit “ridiculous” and said “lab-grown meat is not proven to be safe enough for consumers.”

“Food security is a matter of national security, and our farmers are the first line of defense,” Simpson, a key supporter of the law, said in a statement. “As Florida’s commissioner of agriculture, I will fight every day to protect a safe, affordable, and abundant food supply. States are the laboratory of democracy, and Florida has the right to not be a corporate guinea pig. Leave the Frankenmeat experiment to California.”

In an Aug. 30 order, Walker wrote that the state can seek information about “the source or origin of the cells plaintiff uses to produce the cultivated chicken products it wishes to sell in Florida” and the company’s “plans to distribute its cultivated-meat product in Florida.”

The Legislature this year approved the ban as part of a broader Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services bill (SB 1084). The law, in part, makes it a second-degree misdemeanor to sell or manufacture cultivated meat.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture last year approved UPSIDE to manufacture and sell its products.

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