Children's Health Defense
A federal judge earlier this month rejected a request by California-based Upside Foods for a preliminary injunction against Florida’s new law banning the manufacture, distribution and sale of “cultivated,” or lab-grown meat.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the ban into law on May 1, making it a second-degree misdemeanor to produce or sell lab-grown meat in the state. The law took effect in July.
Upside Foods, which makes cultivated chicken, sued Florida in August, alleging the ban is unconstitutional and violates two federal laws that preempt Florida from imposing the ban.
A preliminary injunction is typically issued in a lawsuit if the court finds the plaintiff has a good chance of winning its case — a “substantial likelihood of success on the merits,” However, Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker said Upside’s argument, which boiled down to “if it’s a poultry product, states can’t ban it,” was insufficient.
Just because a product falls within the scope of the federal Poultry Products Inspection Act and is under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) regulatory authority does not mean a state is “expressly preempted from banning the sale of that particular kind of poultry product,” Walker wrote.
Upside argued that the ban imposed ingredient and manufacturing requirements that clashed with provisions of the Poultry Products Inspection Act. However, Walker said Upside was unable to identify any federal law or regulation that created an “ingredient requirement” for cultivated meat. He also said that because the company didn’t produce its lab-grown meat in Florida, the manufacturing ban didn’t affect its premises, operations or facilities…
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